Keetch nodded. “They’re going to want to know what happens to that key once she’s got it,” he said.
I looked to Zachariah.
“She’ll give it to me,” he said. “I’ll be in top cargo, waiting for it. And when I’ve got it that will be the time for you and me—” he nudged Keetch with an elbow— “to lead another rising.”
Once again we waited on Keetch. The way he fidgeted it was easy to see that he was nervous about the plan. But that was natural. I was nervous too. Finally he said, “It would be the only way. Except it better not fail.”
Zachariah turned to me. “There you are,” he said. “We’ll do it!”
On all this we shook hands, and I was soon, once again, alone in darkness.
It’s odd perhaps, but I was not frightened. I assumed we could succeed with our plan. Oh, what a power of faith in justice had I then!
A few days from Providence . . . I smiled. I would return to the life I led with my family, but now in America, where, so I had been long taught to believe, greater freedom held sway. I sat for the better part of an hour thinking, not of what was about to happen, but of happy days ahead. . . .
I heard a sound. I started up, peering into the darkness.
Zachariah, quite breathless, appeared before me, “Charlotte,” he called. “It’s time!”
I crawled out from the brig. Zachariah had found a small lamp, one well-hooded. “This way,” he whispered before I could ask him anything.
We moved down the hold toward the central cargo bay and its ladder. I looked up. It was quite dark above.
“What time is it?” I suddenly asked.
“Two bells into the midwatch.”
By shore reckoning that meant it would be one o’clock at night!
“Couldn’t we do it by daylight?”
“Charlotte, you’re scheduled to be hanged at dawn.”
My stomach rolled. My legs grew shaky.
Zachariah put his hand on my arm as if he himself had caught my fear. “You’ll do well,” he said.
He closed down the lantern’s hood to a mere slit and led the way up the ladder. I followed until we reached the top cargo. Once there, Zachariah signaled me toward the rear ladder. It would put me directly into the steerage before the captain’s cabin.
“Where will the captain be?” I whispered.
“Keetch sent word that he’s got him at the helm,” Zachariah explained, his voice low. “He’s managed to jam the wheel somehow, and called the captain for instruction. Roused him from his bed.”
“How long will I have?”
“Take no more time than you need,” was his reply.
“And the rest of the crew?”
“Word on that too. They all know, and are waiting. Go on now. I’ll watch for you here.”
I looked at him.
“Charlotte, it’s this or the royal yard.”
I crept aloft and soon was standing alone in the empty steerage, listening. The steady wash of waves, the bob bing and swaying of the ship, the creak and groan of timbers, all told me the Seahawk was plowing toward home in a brisk wind. By chance the door to my old cabin was open. As it swung to and fro it banged irregularly, rusty hinges rasping. When had I heard that sound before? What came into my mind was my first night aboard the ship, when I lay upon my bed feeling so abandoned! How frightened I’d been then! How little was there then to fear! I even remembered the voices I’d heard outside my door at that time. Who had spoken? I wondered, as though to keep myself from moving forward now. What was said?
Nervously, I glanced back over a shoulder through the steerage portal. While I could not see much, the soft glow that lay upon the deck told me that it must be a full or nearly full moon. I was glad of that. It meant there would be some light to see by inside the captain’s cabin.
Yet, inexplicably, I remained standing there, wasting precious time, listening to my old door bang and creak, trying to rid myself of the fear that lay like heavy ballast in the pit of my stomach: a notion that I had neglected to consider something about the voices I had heard that first night. The suspicion became rather like an invisible rope that restrained me. Try though I might I could not find how to unbind it.
A random plunge of the ship roused me to my business. Making sure the little lantern was well shielded, I moved to the door, put my hand to the handle, and pushed. It gave with ease.
The room lay open before me. Dimly I could make out its fine furnishings—even the chessboard with its pieces—exactly as I recollected them from my first visit. I lifted the lantern. There, seated at the table was Captain Jaggery. His eyes were upon me.
“Miss Doyle,” he said, “how kind of you to visit. Do please step in.”
Chapter Twenty-One
He was waiting for me. All I could do was stare at him in disbelief.
“Miss Doyle,” the captain said. “Would you be good enough to sit.” He rose and held an upholstered seat out for me.
As the Seahawk rolled, the door behind me slammed shut. The sudden noise startled me from my daze.
“You knew I was coming,” I whispered, finding it impossible to raise my voice.
“Of course.”
“How?”
There was a slight smile on his lips. Then he said, “Mr. Keetch.”
“Keetch?” I echoed lamely.
“Exactly. Who, from the start, kept me well informed about the crew; how they kept other sailors from signing on, how they threatened passengers so they would not sail. He informed me about Cranick. About Zachariah. Yes, Miss Doyle, I know your friend is alive and has been hiding in the hold. I’m delighted that he keeps out of the way. No charge of murder shall be put to me, shall it?
“More to the point I know about what you are doing in my cabin now. It is the business of a ship’s master, Miss Doyle, to know his ship and his crew. To keep everything in order. I told you that before. Apparently it still surprises.”
I stood unmoving.
“Won’t you sit?” he asked.
“What do you mean to do with me?” I asked.
“You’ve had your trial. Was it not fair?”
“I did not kill Mr. Hollybrass.”
“Was the trial fair, Miss Doyle?”
“It was you who killed him,” I burst out.
He remained silent for a long while. Then at last, he said, “Do you know why I despise you, Miss Doyle?” It was said evenly, without emotion. “Do you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“The world of a ship, Miss Doyle, is a world not with out quarrels,” he began, “sometimes bitter quarrels. But it is, Miss Doyle, a world that does work according to its own order.
“Now when a voyage commences, all understand the rightful balance between commander and commanded. I can deal with the sailors, and they with me. I need them to run the Seahawk. Just as they need me to command her. So we live by a rough understanding, they and I. When this voyage began I had high hopes you would help me keep the crew in order with your ladylike ways.
“But you, Miss Doyle, you interfered with that order. You presumed to meddle where you had no right. Look at the way you acted! The way you’ve dressed! It doesn’t matter that you are different, Miss Doyle. Don’t flatter yourself. The difficulty is that your difference encourages them to question their places. And mine. The order of things.
“Miss Doyle, you ask me what I intend to do. I intend to—”
“You killed Hollybrass, didn’t you?” I now demanded.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“He threatened me,” the captain said with a shake of his head. “And in the midst of that storm. It was intolerable.”