Galbraith stood at the foot of the starboard ladder, staring up.
"Permission to hoard, sir?"
Adam looked across at the anchored brigantine. It was not over yet.
And there was always the flag.
The thought made him want to laugh. But, as in the past, he would not be able to stop.
"No, belay that, Mr Galbraith. Is my gig ready?"
He ran lightly down the ladder, for a moment shutting out all the others.
"Take charge here, Leigh. Fire if need be, for by that time it will be your decision."
Galbraith walked beside him.
"Then take Mr Rist, I pray you, sir. He knows these people. You and I do not."
There was no sane interlude. He was in the boat, the oars already hacking at the water without, it seemed, moving a limb.
Like some of the nightmares. It was not next week, or tomorrow. It was now.
"Stand by to board!"
Now.
Suddenly, the other vessel was right here. Small compared with Unrivalled and yet she seemed to tower above the gig, as if to overwhelm them.
"Oars!" Jago swung the tiller bar, glancing only briefly at the last few yards, conscious even in this moment of danger of how it must be done, be it for the last time.
Adam was on his feet, feeling the bottom boards creaking under him, intent on keeping his balance when at any second he expected a shot to smash him down. Figures lined the brigantine's bulwarks, and some of them shook their weapons, apparently ready and eager to use them.
"Stand away! Stand of! I warn you now and but once!"
The voice was loud and clear, and Adam guessed he was using a speaking-trumpet.
Rist murmured, "It's Cousens, sir. He's the one."
Adam did not even look at him, but recalled Galbraith's last words. He knows these people. You and I do not. And there was another sound, which tension had forced into the back of his mind. A strange groaning, many voices blended into one despairing protest, as if Alhatroz herself was in pain.
As the gig moved into the vessel's shadow he was aware of the stillness, the finality. So unlike the wildness and sometimes the exhilaration of a true sea fight, the triumph and the suffering as an enemy's flag fell into the smoke. He looked up at the faces; even they were motionless now. It only needed one hothead, that brief incentive to kill, but all he could think was that his own voice seemed detached, disembodied, like someone else, an onlooker.
"In the Kings name! Stand down and lower your weapons! I am going to hoard you!"
"And who speaks with such confidence?" Laughter, an unnatural sound, and Adam noticed that the voices from the vessel's hull had fallen silent, as if they all knew and thought they understood. They would be expecting more treachery, no different from that which had beaten them into captivity.
Rist muttered, "He's bluffing, sir."
Jago reached out to prevent it; he had heard Rist's remark, like the leadsman's chant. Deeper and deeper into madness…
But Adam looked at him. "If I fall, get the boat away." He smiled faintly. "Luke."
Then he seized the handropes and felt the heat on his face as his head rose above the bulwark. This was the moment. He thought of the broken watch and the boy who treasured it, of Galbraith's concern, of the church in Penzance…
He jumped down on to the deck. A press of figures seemed to fill it. Seamen: they looked more like pirates. And each man would know that they could hack him down and dispose of the boat's crew with neither risk nor effort.
The burly man in a rough blue coat he assumed was Cousens confronted him, his eyes flitting across the epaulettes and sheathed sword, then coming straight to his face. He said again, "And who are you, sir?"
"Captain Adam Bolitho. My ship you can see for yourself." He heard an undercurrent run through the listening, watching seamen. "You and your vessel are under arrest, and will be taken to face charges as laid down…"
Cousens did not let him finish. "I had nothing to do with that shooting. Those vessels are barely known to me." He folded his thick arms. "I am under charter to do this work. I have nothing to hide." He leaned slightly towards him. "And nothing to fear from you!"
Adam heard Rist move very slightly by his shoulder, and imagined Jago waiting in the boat alongside. Your decision.
He said abruptly, "Tell your men to put down their weapons. Now."
Someone shouted, in French, Spanish; to Adam it could have been anything. But Cousens turned away, eyes glazed with fury or disbelief as Unrivalled's larboard battery ran out into the sunlight as if controlled by a single hand. Like a line of blackened teeth.
He gasped, "I'll see you in hell first!" And then stared at his men as, singly or in groups, the cutlasses and boarding-pikes clattered to the deck.
Rist stepped forward. "I'll take the pistol!" And dragged it from his hand. It was cocked and ready.
Cousens stared at the frigate again. "They wouldn't dare!"
Rist wanted to kill him. It had been too close this time. Insanity.
He answered, "And would any captain dare to board a slaver alone?"
Jago and the gig's crew climbed aboard, and Adam knew other boats were pulling across to join them.
He was unsure if he should or could move. Dazed, sick, afraid, it was all and none of them.
Cousens was staring around, baffled, unable to believe what was happening, perhaps wondering if the frigate would have fired, when her captain would have been one of the first to die.
Adam took two paces away from the side and looked up at the Portuguese flag, but he saw only Galbraith. And would he have fired, had it been his choice alone,
And suddenly there were familiar uniforms and faces, taking up positions on deck and aft in the brigantine's quarters. Varlo had come across with a fully armed party of seamen and some marines, and they were in no mood for threat or argument now that the tension was broken.
Rist saw the lieutenant placing some of his men at the swivel guns. He had at least remembered that lesson.
Rist licked his lips and nodded to Williams, the gunner's mate who was one of the boarders.
"Near thing, Frank!" His Welsh accent seemed even more alien here.
Adam said, "Search the vessel, Mr Rist. Papers, evidence-vou know what to do." Ile looked at the hatch covers. The silence now was almost unnerving. "Is it safe to open those, d'you think?"
"It can be done with care, sir. Slowly."
Cousens, a Royal Marine on either side of him with a fixed bayonet at the ready, shouted, "I am within my rights, Captain!"
Adam looked at him, and found himself thinking of his aunt. Dear Nancy, she had so wanted a portrait for the old house. She had nearly lost her chance. But once again the laughter remained trapped in his throat.
He said, "I would dispute that, but others better qualified will decide in good time. For my own part, I would happily run you up to Unrivalled's main-yard." He thought he saw the man flinch, and seemed to hear Rist's voice. Hes bluffing. "And enjoy it."
He swung round at the sound of shouted orders, and a disturbance of some kind from the companionway by the wheel.
Williams and another seaman slowly emerged, carrying what looked like a corpse wrapped around with a filthy blanket.
Williams got down on his knees and laid the bundle carefully on the deck.
"In the cabin, sir. Tied up, she was."
She was a child, naked, wrists and ankles scarred by ropes or shackles. Her feet were badly torn, as if she had been forcemarched for some time before she had been dragged aboard Albatroz. To this. She was alive, but unable to see or think, on the verge of hysteria or madness.
Williams was murmuring softly to her, holding the blanket to shade her face from the glare.
But Adam was looking at her thighs and legs, caked with dried blood. There were teeth marks on her skin where she had been bitten; she must have been raped repeatedly. A child. He thought of the letter and the sketch… maybe the same age as Elizabeth, a girl he did not know any more than this one.