The funerals were becoming commonplace — two or three a day now. Normally, a body would be wrapped in a shroud for burial at sea. But sewing the shrouds was the office of the sail maker, and Evans was long gone. Samuel was struggling to take over the old man’s duties, but it was all he could do to keep the Griffin’s patchwork canvas aloft. So the dead were dispatched naked to their final resting places.
“It makes no difference to the sharks,” was Captain Blade’s opinion. “A meal’s a meal, wrapped or no.”
The cruel seaman never missed a flogging, yet never attended a single funeral. “A captain has more important things on his plate than feeding fish,” he told Samuel.
An hour did not pass in which Samuel neglected to curse himself for saving his master’s life on the ratlines. His hatred of the captain grew stronger, not weaker, as the barque approached the New World.
But even as resentment swelled inside Samuel, James Blade had begun to warm to the cabin boy who had stopped his fall that fateful day.
On the surface, there was no difference. The captain continued to treat him as a slave who was unworthy of even the slightest consideration. But it was Blade who had ordered the barber to keep an eye out for the young seaman the crew now called Lucky.
Never mind that the men of the Griffin avoided York like an evil spirit. He was most often seen covered in gore, sawing an unfortunate sailor’s leg off. His newfound “friendship” with Samuel only served to make the boy feel like even more of an outcast. And he had James Blade to thank for it.
Samuel’s feelings for the captain were not helped by the information he acquired on bailing duty in the ship’s bilge. As he battled the pumps and the stench, he overheard some sailors chortling over the day when the hold would be piled high with gold and silver. Soon, they said, the Griffin would wallow low in the water from a cargo of plundered Spanish treasure, and all aboard her would be rich.
Samuel pounded back to the captain’s quarters as soon as his shift was over, ignoring fatigue and the cramping of his muscles. He found Blade at the small desk, examining his rutter — the secret diary of a ship’s pilot who had sailed this route before. No map, no chart, no instrument was as vital to a safe voyage as a good rutter.
“Sir!” he cried. Distraught, he related what he had heard from the pumpers in the hold. “It can’t be so, can it, Captain? Tell me we’re not — common pirates!”
“Pirates?!” The bone handle of the snake whip came down on Samuel’s head with devastating, murderous force. The last thing he saw before the captain’s cabin went dark was James Blade, his cheeks suffused with purple rage.
Samuel awoke to a stinging pain so great it seared his very soul. He was in the barber’s surgery. York was pouring seawater over a bloody gash on the boy’s crown.
“A friendly piece of advice, young Samuel,” the man said, a trace of humor in his voice. “Never say ‘pirate’ to Captain Blade. A right good thing it is that he’s taken a liking to you.”
Samuel tried to sit up, but the torment was too much. “We are pirates,” he mumbled bitterly. “Thieves. Murderers too, probably.”
“Listen to me, boy,” York ordered. “We’re patriots, with the full backing of the king of England. There are papers on board signed by the Merry Monarch himself in proper London. They give us the right — no, the responsibility — to attack and disrupt enemy shipping in the Indies.”
Samuel frowned. “How does it help England if we steal their treasure?”
“Gold buys ships, boy. And trains soldiers, and equips them with muskets and cannon,” the barber explained. “We’re at war, Lucky, and wealth is power. The Royal Navy can’t waste a ship on every stinking fever-hole in the New World. That’s our lot — the patriots, the privateers! We’re legal as a magistrate, flush with letters of marque to raid the scurvy Dutch.”
“But—” Samuel was confused. “But they were talking about Spanish treasure, not Dutch.”
“True that is,” York agreed. “And a beastly nuisance to us that His Majesty, God bless him, called a truce with the cursed Spaniard. But the ocean is large, and the courtly affairs of Europe far distant. Mistakes are made, you see my point? A Spanish ship looks much like a Dutch ship in the heat of battle, and treasure is treasure, no matter whose dead hand you pry it from.”
He put an arm around the cabin boy’s shoulders, and Samuel winced from the stench of decay on his blood-spattered smock. The barber’s pockmarked face was barely an inch from his own, his breath as foul as the rest of him. “And in this part of the world, Lucky, no treasure shines as bright as Spanish gold.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kaz stumbled through the darkness of 4:45 A.M. along the boardwalk that connected the Poseidon compound to the small marina. There was little moon. Only a handful of stars flickered through the overcast to light his way.
A dull clunk — his dive bag, falling to the dock. As he bent down, groping through the gloom, his knife slipped from its scabbard and planted itself with a boing tip first in the weathered planking. It could just as easily have been in Kaz’s foot.
With a groan that was overwhelmed by a yawn, he gathered up his gear. Hockey players lugged a lot of equipment too. Why was he so discombobulated this morning?
“Kaz! That you?”
Dante beckoned from the harbor lights. Kaz gathered up his things and hurried over. “Where’s the boat?”
“Gone,” the boy told him.
“You’re kidding!” Squinting, he took inventory of the various research vessels and launches that bobbed by the dock. There was no Ponce de León.
“Maybe it’s in for service,” suggested Dante. “Like, change the oil—”
“Rotate the tires,” Kaz added sarcastically.
“You know what I mean. Boat stuff.”
“What boat stuff?” Star came into the light, her dive bag draped over her shoulder.
Adriana was right behind her. She did a quick scan of the harbor. “Not again. I thought all this was behind us.”
“It could be a maintenance problem,” put in Dante.
“Yeah, well, I want to hear that from Cutter.” Star dumped her gear on the dock and marched back up the boardwalk toward the institute. Her limp added an ill-fitting wobble to her almost military gait, but the others followed without comment. All too well they recognized the look of determination on the slight girl’s face.
Only Kaz ventured a discouraging word. “You know, if the boat’s being serviced, Cutter’s probably grabbing some extra sleep.”
“I don’t care if he’s in a coma.” Star strode purposefully up to the small cabin and rapped on the door.
The team leader wasn’t home, so they tried the main lab area, where Cutter, Marina, and Reardon shared a small office.
“Tad?” The door was slightly ajar. Star pushed it open and turned on the light.
The room was deserted, the desk hidden under piles of maps and data printouts. The only other object on it was a drinking glass filled with what appeared to be water. In the bottom sat a small metal disk.
“Blackbeard’s anchor,” said Dante sarcastically. “Coming soon to a theater near you.” But when he took a step toward it, he noticed a sharp chemical smell coming from the clear liquid. And when he peered into the glass itself, he saw that his artifact had changed.