“And then you decided to put the blame on me,” I pressed. “To keep me from going to the authorities and telling them the truth about you.”
“Who shall be blamed for this disastrous voyage?” he asked. “It cannot be me, can it? No, it must be someone from the outside. The unnatural one. To preserve order, Miss Doyle, sacrifices must always be made. You.”
“Am I a sacrifice?” I demanded.
“In all honesty, I wished you had broken your own neck falling from the rigging or on the bowsprit. You did not. As it stands we should reach Providence in a few days. It is crucial that when we make landfall I be firmly established as master.
“Mr. Hollybrass had to die. No one could possibly believe I would do such a thing. So, yes, since you are unnatural—proclaimed so, I hasten to remind you, by all—you shall be held responsible. Thus is our world set right again.”
I still hadn’t moved.
Ignoring me now, he proceeded to light some candles. A soft yellow glow filled the room.
“Look,” he said.
Puzzled, I gazed about the cabin. I saw now what I had not seen before in the light of the moon. In the candlelight I could see that much of the furniture was cracked. Many legs had splints. Upholstery was water stained. Frames on the walls hung crookedly. Some had pictures missing. Maps and papers on the table were wrinkled or sadly torn. The tea service on the table was dented and tarnished, but arranged and presented as whole. The chess pieces were, I now realized, no more than salt and pepper shakers, broken cups, bent candle sticks.
I looked at him again. He was gazing at me as if nothing had happened.
“It was the storm that destroyed much of it,” he said. “I have spent considerable time in setting the room to rights. Have I not done well? Order, Miss Doyle, order is all. Take away the light and . . .” He leaned over and blew the candles out. “You see—it’s hard to notice the difference. Everything appears in order.”
“You’re . . . mad,” I said, finally able to respond to the man.
“On the contrary, Miss Doyle, I am the soul of reason. And to prove my reasonableness I’m going to give you some choices.
“You came to my cabin, Miss Doyle, to steal the key to the guns. Is that not so?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t have to admit to it. I know it’s so. Mr. Keetch has informed me about everything.” Even as he spoke he reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a key.
“Here is the key you wanted,” he said, tossing it so that it landed by my feet. “Take it up, Miss Doyle,” he said. “Go to the cabinet. Take out any one of the muskets. All are loaded. I will sit here. You may carry out the plan you and Zachariah concocted. You must know that I will be murdered. But Miss Doyle, do not doubt for an instant that the world will learn your part in this. Do you think these sailors will keep quiet? No. Open that cabinet and you let out scandal. Horror. Ruination. Not just you. Your family. Your father. His firm.
“So before you do that, consider another choice.” He walked to the far corner of his cabin and picked up what looked like a bundle of clothing. He dumped it at my feet. I saw by the light of my lantern that it was the garments I had set aside weeks ago—a lifetime ago, it seemed—for my disembarkation. White dress. Stockings. Shoes. Gloves. Bonnet. All in perfect order.
“Put these back on, Miss Doyle,” he said. “Resume your place and station. Publicly renounce your ways, beg me for mercy before the crew, and I—you have my word—I will grant it. All will be restored to its proper balance. Like my cabin furnishings. A little dented and torn perhaps, but in the diminished light no one need know. All reputations saved.
“Of course, there is a third choice. You had your trial. A verdict was reached. You could accept that verdict and be hanged. I’ll even invent a story for your family. Some . . . sickness. An accident. The hurricane. So yes, the hanging is one of your choices.
“Now what shall it be?” He clasped his hands, sat again in his chair and waited.
Out on the deck three bells rang.
“What if I don’t accept any of them?”
He hesitated. “Miss Doyle, I thought I made it clear. There are no other choices.”
“You’re wrong,” I said. And so saying, I turned and rushed out of his cabin, along the steerage and into the waist of the ship.
There was, as I had guessed, a full moon. It sat high in a sky of darkest blue, amidst shadowy scudding clouds. The sails on the forward mast were full, and fluttered with the tension of the wind. The sea hissed about the bow as the Seahawk rushed ahead.
In a line upon the forecastle deck the crew had gathered and were looking down at me. When I turned to look at the quarterdeck I saw Keetch there, not far from the splintered stump of the mainmast. Near him was Zachariah, his hands bound before him. It took but a moment for me to realize that our entire conspiracy had been overthrown and turned against us.
I stepped forward. Behind me I heard Captain Jaggery at his door. I took a quick look; he had a pistol in his hand. As he emerged I moved hastily across the deck.
For a moment all stood still as if each were waiting for the other to move first.
It was Captain Jaggery who broke the silence. “There stands your shipmate,” he proclaimed shrilly to the crew. “She crept into my cabin and would have murdered me in my sleep if I’d not awakened and managed to wrest away this pistol. Not enough to have murdered Mr. Hollybrass! She would have murdered me. I tell you, she would murder you all!
“It was Zachariah there,” the captain continued to rant, “hiding, pretending injury to keep from work, who let her out and set her on this murderous plot.
“She had her trial. She had her verdict, to which you all agreed. Only just now I gave her yet another way to release herself from the punishment of hanging. I begged her to put on her proper dress, and told her I would find the heart to forgive. This she refused.”
“He’s lying!” I called out. “He’s trying to save himself. He’s the one who killed Hollybrass. He’s admitted it.”
“She’s the one who lies!” the captain cried, pointing his pistol now at me, now toward the crew, which made them visibly flinch. “The truth is she wants to take over the ship. Yes, she does. Would you stand for that? Do you wish to put into port and have this girl spread the slander that she, a girl, took command of this ship, took over each and every one of you and told you what to do? A girl! Would you ever be able to hold your heads up in any port in any part of the world? Think of the shame of that!”
I had begun to edge toward the steps to the forecastle deck, thinking the men there would stand behind me. But as I approached none moved forward. I stopped.
“You mustn’t believe him!” I begged them.
“Don’t be afraid of her,” Captain Jaggery cried. “Look at her. She’s nothing but an unnatural girl, a girl trying to act like a man. Trying to be a man. She can only harm you by living. Let her have her punishment.”
I started up the forecastle steps. The men began to back away. Horrified, I paused. I sought out Barlow. Ewing. Grimes. Fisk. Each in turn seemed to shrink from my look. I turned back.
Captain Jaggery fingered the pistol in his hand. “Take her!” he commanded.
But that far they would not go. And the captain who saw this as soon as I now began to advance toward me himself.
I backed away from him until I was atop the forecastle deck. The line of crew had split, some to either side. “Help me!” I appealed to them again. But though they were deaf to Captain Jaggery they were equally deaf to me.