Cheatum turned white.
“No, wait, change that order, don’t throw his sacks to the sharks. I forgot our friends Yanoo and Matoo love the nuts of their enemies for dessert.”
“You—you wouldn’t—”
Jack exploded. He kicked Cheatum full in the face and motioned to the Belauran natives to hold him down spread-eagled on the deck.
“You traitorous bastard, you think I’m playing games?”
Jack took a thick, sharp-bladed skinning knife from its sheath and drove it into the deck between Cheatum’s legs, inches from his crotch. The man screamed although the blade hadn’t touched him. Jack worked the blade free and pushed it edgewise—hard—into Cheatum’s groin, beginning a sawing motion which soon parted the canvas trousers. Paul leaned back against the rail, almost as pale as Cheatum, and murmured in a low voice, “Jack, uh—” He went silent as he caught Quince’s glare. The first mate told Paul to hurry over the side and help Hansum gather survivors in one of the launches.
With the first feel of the cold blade, Cheatum lost all defiance; he started whimpering and screaming and told everything he knew. Jack pulled the blade slowly upward, making a shallow incision. “Faster, you pig, I want to know everything.” Cheatum gagged and choked and begged for forgiveness. Jack released the pressure slightly. “Your greatest gift from us will be a quick death after we carve you.”
Doing anything he could think to appease Jack, Cheatum told of the count’s riches on the ship, how he had taken the job as ship’s master from the count, and how de Silva himself was down in the ladyhole. Jack’s eyes went wide. Seeing a chance for some mercy, Cheatum quickly described how the count had been on the ship the whole time and gone down to check his dearest treasure box when the ship turned.
“And not only that, Jack—I beg ya don’t cut me—the Chinaman, Quen-Li, he’s down there, too.”
This news shocked all of them. The men froze in place, listening hard.
“Could he have escaped?” Most of the men glanced unconsciously toward the lifeboats heading for shore.
“No—Jack—he couldn’t. Don’t kill me, please.”
“He couldn’t what?”
Cheatum was at the limit of terror; all were aware that he was defecating on the deck and ready to pass out.
Jack eased the blade away from Cheatum’s groin. “Ten seconds, everything you know and you may live without having to join a choir.”
“The Chinaman was chained in the hold aft. Just above the ladyhole where de Silva had his personal strongbox. When he found out who Quen-Li was, de Silva had him beat bad and was takin’ him back to Spain as a prisoner for the crown.”
“I’ll bet you tried to save him, didn’t you, Cheats? Any chance either one could still be alive?”
“No—no—I don’t… I don’t think so.”
Knowing he had heard all that Cheatum knew, Jack let the man go. He turned, sheathing his knife. Cheatum curled into a fetal position, retching.
Jack riveted his gaze on the Spanish wreck with the others, praying for anything that would allow him to save Quen-Li’s life. “Where the hell is the ladyhole?” he asked Quince. He was familiar with the term for a secluded area in the bowels of a ship, where women and valuables were sometimes hidden, but he had never seen one.
Quince was ahead of him, answering before he was through. “There!” He pointed to the part of the ship that hadn’t slipped under yet. “Christ, Jack, the ladyhole’s deep in the stern and the way it’s upended, Quen-Li might not be drowned!”
Jack raced for the rail, but the boats had pulled away. Seeing Paul and Hansum as the only ones in hailing distance, he screamed for them to stop. He wanted to tell them to return for him but knew that might take a moment too long. The Spanish ship was balanced precariously in her present position and might slide down the reef face at any time.
“Paul, for God sakes! Quen-Li might be in yon stern section!”
Paul and Hansum quickly waved to Jack then turned and headed for the ship’s stern. Jack was going to yell to them to send back the other launch for him, but Hansum and Paul were already rowing like madmen and couldn’t hear him.
“Christ, Quince, I need a boat!” Jack shouted. “Paul and Hansum are going to risk their lives to find Quen, I know it—damn, they’re gonna get caught in that hulk if it goes under.”
“Yer right, the two of ’em’s got more heart than common sense, and they love that Chinaman…. There, the billyboat under those tarps; let’s get it over the side. Brown! Red Dog! Matoo! C’mere and help us get this thing in the water.”
Jack yelled back to the sailors as he dropped into the billyboat. “When you get enough men back here from the other launch, see if you can maneuver the Star and anchor where her stern will swing parallel to the wreck site.”
As Jack and Quince and Matoo pulled for the Agresor, they could see and hear it move again. “Hurry, Matoo,” Jack yelled. The Indian, though he could make a canoe paddle sing, had little experience with oars. As powerful as he was, he could not keep up with Jack’s frenzied pace.
Their boat soon banged unceremoniously into the launch Bob and Paul had rowed over and tied to the ship’s port rail. It was empty. Jack, beside himself, yelled down one of the aft companionways. “Paul, Bob, where in hell are you?”
Hansumbob’s voice carried back from somewhere inside.
“We’re in here, Jack. We’ve found the strongbox but can’t find Quen-Li. Paulee’s gonna try dropping through the next hole into the bilge.”
Just then the Agresor shifted.
“Goddamn it, get the hell out of there, both of you. It’s going down!”
Jack felt he was coming apart at the seams. He was about to lose three good friends including the young man who had almost become a part of him. Quince motioned Matoo to untie the other launch and their own from the Agresor; in case it went under, it wouldn’t drag the boats down. There was only silence from below.
“Sweet Jesus.” Jack jumped onto the ship and started to pull himself down the stairs, yelling, “Paul! Bob! Damn you both!” He made it down one deck below before he could see Bob trying to reach below him in rising water. “Bob!”
“Oh, Jackee, Paul’s not back up the hole.” Hansum was gasping and soaking wet. Jack realized he hadn’t returned his call because he had been holding his head under to reach for Paul.
“God, no, no, no.” The ship shifted again. Jack yelled for Hansum to grab his hand. Hansum tried twice and slipped, then without warning, the movement of the ship dramatically changed and Hansum was thrown on top of him, and both flew crazily back up the companionway. The ship was inverting. Suddenly Jack was choking on seawater, but he kept a firm hold on Bob, and within seconds they were washed out of the vessel and floating on the surface. The Agresor was gone.
Now both launches and the billyboat were drifting over a slick of flotsam from the ship. They crawled into the boats with Matoo’s help. Jack, speechless, held his head in his hands. He couldn’t believe it—if only he had ordered them back to get him. If only he had never said anything. Now it wasn’t just Quen-Li, he had lost Paul. “God, it’s my fault.”
Hansumbob, equally shaken, sitting in the other launch a few feet away, just said, “No, Jackee, ye can’t be blamin’ yesself. God knows ye tried.”
By this time there was very little distance between the Agresor and the Star. The crew had managed to anchor, and the stern was swinging from two bow hooks only a couple dozen yards from where the Spaniard had sunk.
How hollow his victory was, Jack thought. He had just drowned the man he had sailed half a world to kill, but he could only think of Paul, sacrificed in a futile effort to save Quen-Li. “Damn you, Paul. Damn you for a fool,” he yelled at the surface of the water.