"Oh, dere be a whole herd o' rabbit run up an' down my spine!" Balfa told him with an uneasy chuckle. "Why?"
"All of a sudden, I feel them, too, cher, " Lanxade confessed to him, turning to smirk. "Your talk of retiring makes me think that it may be a good time for me to 'swallow the anchor' as well. Havana or Cartagena… they are both delightful cities, where a well-respected-dare I even say famous!-former privateer could retire ashore," he said, preening at his mustachios and posing with a hand on the hilt of his smallsword like a grandee. "Well settled, famous, and rich. A well-built house overlooking the bay, perhaps? An honourable and respected and wealthy gentlemen, hein?"
"Oho!" Balfa gleefully grunted. "Some aspirin' lad of ours will take Le Revenant, sail her away to better pickin's. We can't kill dat girl, though," he speculated, making no real objection to a betrayal as he leaped on the most troublesome matter with his usual blunt acuity. "I stagger back to N'awlins, tell Maurepas an' dem a tale o' mutiny when de lads see all dat money, and I got away by de skin o' my balls. Who know where dey go after dey cut dem bebes'heads off, haw haw!"
"And I was slain after a gallant and heroic bit of swordplay?" Lanxade airily fantasised, drawing in his corseted stomach to make a more dangerous figure to his own mind. "Fierce as I tried to defend the poor young gentlemen, ah… quel dommage, " he said, simpering.
"Oh, mais oui, you kill a dozen before dyin'." Balfa snickered.
"But then… what will we do with our little mademoiselle?" Lanxade quibbled with a sober sigh. "She lives, she'll talk sooner or later, and her parents, the Spanish authorities will run us down. I wish to fuck my way to my dotage, Boudreaux, not get garotted before I've had a chance to amuse all the pretty wenches of Cartagena."
"We come up wit' somethin'," Balfa muttered, though what that would be, he hadn't a clue. He really didn 't want little Charite fed to the 'gators and crabs, but what other course was there?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ahoy, the boat!" Midshipman Grace shouted from the entry-port with the aid of a brass speaking-trumpet, though his challenge was by rote, since Proteus's people had known who it was that approached her for the past quarter hour, in mounting expectation and curiosity.
"Proteus … aye aye!" Quartermaster's Mate Toby Jugg, senior hand aboard the shalope shouted back, thrusting one hand skyward as if in triumph, with four fingers spread to announce the arrival of a Post-Captain as well.
Gilding the lily, that, Lewrie thought of Jugg's display, for when coming back aboard, Lewrie was HMS Proteus. Four fingers and "aye, aye" were for unknown Post-Captains arriving, to tell how many sailors should turn out as the side-party. After a long, fretful, civilian, and covert absence, though, the more Navy ritual, the better, for it meant a return to sanity, security… and his own identity.
Lewrie almost squirmed with anticipation, that itchy-innards, leg-jiggling impatience he recalled from his boyhood when his father, Sir Hugo, had gruffly announced that they'd coach to town the next day. The dawn would never come, it seemed, before he got that first orange from the fruiterer's, that first peek at new toys, first sweet-sticky candy after being good, studious, and quiet for so long!
His eyes flitted hungrily over his magnificent frigate. Proteus in his absence had been maintained in spanking "Bristol Fashion," with First Officer Mr. Langlie in his stead as acting-captain, aided by Lt. Catterall and Lt. Adair, and that "temporary" Third Officer Lt. Darling, whom Capt. Nicely had fetched him. Lewrie could find nothing to gripe about in her appearance or her readiness.
And there those worthies were by the starboard quarterdeck bulwarks, wide grins plastered on their faces, just about ready to give up Sea Officer "stoic" and whoop like punters at Derby whose horse led the last furlong. His whole crew looked to be gathered on the gangway and glad to see him… happier than he had a right to expect.
Their shalope, a wretched craft only fifty feet on the range of the deck and never meant for extended seafaring, sidled up to Proteus like a timid trout shyly nuzzling up to a great sea bass. After they left the Mississippi Delta, even Lewrie's cast-iron constitution had been challenged to seasickness aboard the shalope, so it was with avidity that he took the single easy step from the shalope's low entry-port to the main-mast channels, man-ropes and boarding battens of the frigate's starboard entry. A moment later, Lewrie stood on his own decks once more, doffing his much-abused wide-brimmed hat in salute to the side-party, the wail of bosun's calls, the stamp-slap of boots and hands on muskets from the Marines, and the doffings from both officers and crew.
Once his honours had been rendered, Lewrie gleefully smiled and whooped himself to send his civilian headgear sailing as far off as possible. He skinned off his hideous shiny-green coat and tore at the buttons that bound him into that tight, striped waist-coat.
"Lemme help, sir!" his steward, Aspinall, joyfully offered as he came near. "God A'mighty, sir, but… these're a tad… garish!"
"Burn 'em if you wish, Aspinall," Lewrie sniggered.
Then there were his officers to greet, his middies, Bosun Pendarves, and his Mate, Mr. Towpenny, now returned to robust, full-fleshed health after his ordeal on the Dry Tortugas. And there was his Coxswain, Andrews, eyes alight with relief that he'd returned at last.
Where's that bloody Nicely? Lewrie fretfully wondered, a glance upwards assuring him that Capt. Nicely's broad pendant still flew aloft; Command of a, hah!… squadron o ' one gone to his head?
As if "witched" up by the very thought, the bulkhead door to the main deck opened below him as he still stood on the starboard gangway. The Manne sentry on that door stamped and presented his musket in salute, and Nicely began to emerge… beaten to it, though, by two balls of fur that streaked so close to Capt. Nicely's feet that he staggered for a moment like a Scotsman dancing over crossed blades, as his cats, Toulon and Chalky, came flying up the starboard quarterdeck ladder in a full-out, softly thundering, feline gallop.
"And there 's my lads!" Lewrie cried, going down on one knee to welcome their arrival, and he didn't care who witnessed it, either, so fondly happy to see them again. And oh! but didn't they twine, mew and trill, stand on their hind legs, and sniff him over, make snorting, open-mouthed sounds as he stroked their heads. They kneaded and gently clawed at his trousers, and made a great ado over him.
"Ah, Captain Lewrie… back at last, I see," Capt. Nicely said once he'd gained the quarterdeck, standing a few feet off, cocking one brow in wary fashion. "The deed's done, sir? Our pirates' foul business stopped, I take it?"
"Not quite, sir," Lewrie told him, looking up, half his attention still fixed on his insistent creatures. "The prize was looted and stripped of anything useful, a dead loss to us. A dead loss for them, too, 'cause we set her afire on our way out of town. Set alight a Yankee emporium ship, too, but that was accidental, really. Let me get below, back in uniform, and I'll tell you all, sir. We know where our pirates are bound, d'ye see, sir, and… there's a chance, just a chance, mind, that when we catch 'em, they might've stolen a shipload of silver the Dons were sending from the Mexico City mint, and-"