From the way he suddenly gripped her shoulders she knew he had not understood, and she startled herself with the harshness of her voice and her words as she continued. "You are afraid of making a cuckold of the man who betrayed me, my mother and my father to the agents of the Directory?"
"Here!" she said, and took one of his hands. She pulled at the front of her dress and guided his hand down over her breast. "There - and there - and there: you feel the scars? My husband caused them. The torturers of the Directory actually used a red-hot poker. They wanted to know where my father was."
"And you said nothing," he said, bemused both by what she said and the fact his hand was not only still on her breast but that she was pressing it to her, and he could feel the nipple stiffening under his palm.
"They let me go and then followed me secretly because they thought I would lead the way to my father. It was in Paris," she said, "but I was looking for my husband, because I wanted to kill him. My parents were in Brittany and escaped to London, and I managed to follow them. And now," she added simply, "I am here."
"I was so jealous," Ramage said. "And I -"
He was going to say that although he was in love with her he did not even know her real name, but managed to smother the sentence by kissing her.
By nine o'clock next morning the light breeze that had been blowing from the north most of the night veered to the east and freshened, and Ramage waited impatiently as La Perla's boat was hoisted in after returning from across the bay.
Jackson left the group of seamen and came over to Ramage to report.
"Where did you leave them?"
"The headland you pointed out, sir; Punta Colorada. Over there, on the western side of the entrance."
"Any tracks or paths there?"
"Didn't see any, sir. Plenty of trees and bushes. Not hard to get through. Maybe three hours or so back to here."
"They gave no trouble?"
"No, sir. The Lieutenant complained about the long walk back."
Ramage grunted sourly. "He's lucky!"
"We told him that, sir."
The problem of what to do with Teniente Colon and his troops, and La Perla's master and crew, had been solved by locking the soldiers and sailors in the large house with the bricked-up windows used as the slaves' barracks, and taking Colon and the Master to the other side of the bay with the one key that would open the enormous padlock on the door. The prisoners were crowded, but Ramage had little sympathy for the soldiers.
The slaves had been given the choice of joining the Royal Navy or staying on Snake Island. Five, including Roberto, had volunteered. The remainder preferred the known life of slavery to the unknown perils of the Navy.
As soon as the boat was secured, Ramage gave a swift series of orders that saw La Perla's lines taken in, headsails hoisted, the big foresail and even larger mainsail set and the schooner reaching smoothly down the bay towards the narrow entrance. The wind funnelling round the hills was freshening every minute, but inside the bay the water was flat, its surface only pewtered.
Southwick turned to Ramage and nodded: "She goes well."
"We've trimmed her too much by the bow!"
The Master walked to the bow and peered over the lee side; then came aft and looked over the taffrail at the wake. He waved the two men away from the big tiller and took it himself, holding it firmly but with hands sensing the feel of the rudder in the water.
He told the two helmsmen to take over the tiller again, and said to Ramage: "Two tons. Sorry, sir."
Ramage laughed cheerfully. "You're allowed ten tons of leeway with a new ship!"
"Don't worry, sir," Southwick said, mollified as soon as he realized that Ramage's original remark was intended as a comment, not a criticism, "I'll have her trimmed as soon as we get round the point. I made allowances for doing that."
Ramage slapped Southwick on the back - the first time the Master had ever known him do that to anyone - and exclaimed: "Mr Southwick, do you realize the significance of what you've just said?"
The Master looked startled. "No, sir! I made allowances for trimming her. I mean," he added hastily, "I had the holds loaded so I could shift - why, of course, the treasure, sir! The coins are the easiest to move."
"Exactly! How many masters in the service use gold and silver as ballast?"
Southwick grinned delightedly. "Good Heavens, I didn't think of it that way! I'll put it in the log - 'Shifted so-and-so tons of Spanish doubloons to trim the ship.' That'll make a good yarn to tell in Portsmouth!"
By ten o'clock La Perla had passed out through the entrance, eased sheets for the reach along the edge of the reefs down to Punta del Soldado at the south-western corner of the island, and rounded it to bear away before a soldier's wind.
To the westward, Puerto Rico was shimmering in the heat with the island of Vieques a long, low shape to the south-west. If Snake Island, Vieques and Puerto Rico formed three sides of a square, the fourth was made up of an almost impassable barrier of small cays stretching in a long line between the northern ends of Puerto Rico and Snake Island.
Without the Spanish charts Ramage could not have risked the passage between Vieques and the cays, but he guessed La Perla would use that channel on her way to Ponce, and to pass south of Vieques might arouse suspicion.
The sun, climbing high now, would be almost directly overhead in a couple of hours. Streaks of pale green, and brown marks in the sea - like dirty fingermarks on a bright-blue enamel dish - showed where reefs lay just below the surface waiting to rip the bottom out of an unwary ship. Some of the shoals rose above the surface to expose coral whitening in the sun, making islets for the dozens of solemn and dignified pelicans soaring, diving lazily, or watching indifferently as La Perla passed within a few hundred yards.
"Feels strange, doesn't it?" Ramage commented to Yorke, nodding towards the Spanish ensign.
"It certainly does. A trifle florid, isn't it?"
The horizontal stripes of red, gold and red were rarely seen at sea by British eyes.
"It's legal, I assume?" Yorke asked. "I mean, if we get taken by a Spanish ship of the line, we won't be hanged as freebooters or pirates or anything?"
"Perfectly legal," Ramage said. "You have to hoist your own flag before you open fire on someone, that's all."
"Barbarous!" Yorke said with a shudder.
"You're looking at it only from the point of view of a potential victim."
"True enough; I was born a potential victim!"
"It looks different if you use it as a trick to capture a prize."
"I'm a peace-loving man," Yorke said. "With an inborn respect for flags."
"So am I," Ramage said blandly. "I just don't believe everything I see!"
By late afternoon La Perla was passing through the channel between Vieques and the south-east corner of Puerto Rico. Punta Tuna on the starboard bow was the last piece of high land they would see until they had passed westward along the length of Puerto Rico and crossed the Mona Passage to sight the eastern end of Hispaniola.
Just before darkness Ramage searched the horizon with his telescope. There were no sails in sight. Lookouts along the coast should be quite happy: La Perla had left Snake Island according to schedule, making for Ponce. What they would not know was that the schooner would pass Ponce in the darkness, and unless the wind dropped away in the night, would be beyond Puerto Rico and out of sight by sunrise.
Chapter Eighteen
Ramage always found Jamaica one of the most exciting of tropical landfalls, with the peaks of the aptly named Blue Mountains showing up fifty miles away. They were sighted low on the western horizon just before sunset on the fifth day.
Responsibility for the safety of a small schooner with important passengers and laden with a king's ransom in treasure meant that Ramage, Southwick and Yorke did not have more than two hours' uninterrupted sleep after leaving Snake Island. Once across the Mona Passage, with Hispaniola a few miles on the starboard beam, the lookouts had done little else than hail "Deck there!" and report a sail in sight.