Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur. Страница 31

Each day his father allowed Katinka van de Velde and her maid, with Aboli to guard them, to go ashore and walk on the beach for an hour. That afternoon while the women had been away from the ship, Hal had found a moment to steal down to his cabin. He had used the point of his dirk to enlarge the crack in the bulkhead. Then he had whittled a plug of matching wood to close and conceal the opening.

Now he was filled with guilt, but he could not restrain himself. He placed his eye to the enlarged aperture. His view into the small cabin beyond was unimpeded. A tall Venetian mirror was fixed to the bulkhead opposite him and, in its reflection, he could see clearly even those areas of the cabin that otherwise would have been hidden from him. It was apparent that this smaller cabin was an annexe to the larger and more splendid main cabin. It seemed to serve as a dressing and retiring place where the Governor's wife could take her bath and attend to her private and intimate toilet. The bath was set up in the centre of the deck, a heavy ceramic hip bath in the Oriental style, the sides decorated with scenes of mountain landscapes and bamboo forests.

Katinka sat on a low stool across the cabin and her maid was tending her hair with one of the silver-backed brushes. It flowed down to her waist, and each stroke made it shimmer in the lamp-light. She wore a gown of brocade, stiff with gold embroidery, but Hal marvelled that her hair was more brilliant than the precious metal thread.

He gazed at her, entranced, trying to memorize each gesture of her white hands, and each delicate movement of her lovely head. The sound of her voice and her soft laughter were balm to his exhausted mind and body. The maid finished her task, and moved away. Katinka stood up from her stool and Hal's spirits plunged, for he expected her to take up the lamp and leave the cabin. But instead she came towards him. Though she passed out of his direct line of sight he could still see her reflection in the mirror. There was only the thickness of the panel between them now, and Hal was afraid she might become aware of his hoarse breathing.

He gazed at her reflection as she stooped and lifted the lid of the night cabinet that was affixed to the opposite side of the bulkhead against which Hal pressed. Suddenly, before he realized what she intended, she swept the skirts of her gown above her waist and, in the same movement, perched like a bird on the seat of the cabinet. _She continued to laugh and chat to her maid as her water putted into the chamber-pot beneath her. When she rose again Hal was given one more glimpse of her long pale legs before the skirts dropped over them and she swept gracefully from the cabin.

Hal lay on his hard bunk in the dark, his hands clasped across his chest, and tried to sleep. But the images of her beauty tormented him.

His body burned and he rolled restlessly from side to side. "I will be strong!" he whispered aloud, and clenched his fists until the knuckles cracked. He tried to drive the vision from his mind, but it buzzed in his brain like a swarm of angry bees. Once again he heard, in his imagination, her laughter, mingle with the merry tinkle she made in her chamber-pot, and he could resist no longer. With a groan of guilt he capitulated and reached down with both hands to his swollen, throbbing loins.

Since the cargo of timber had been lifted out of the main hold, the spare mast could be raised to the deck. It was a labour that required half the ship's company. The massive spar was almost as long as the galleon and had to be carefully manoeuvred from its resting place in the bowels of the hold. It was floated across the channel and then dragged up the beach. There,in a clearing beneath the spreading forest canopy, the carpenters set it on trestles and began to trim and shape it, so that it could be stepped into the hull to replace the gale-shattered mast.

Only once the hold was emptied could Sir Francis call the entire ship's company to witness the opening of the treasure compartment that the Dutch authorities had deliberately covered with the heaviest cargo.

It was the usual practice of the VOC to secure the most valuable items in this manner. Several hundred tons of heavy timber baulks stacked over the entrance to the strong room would deter even the most determined thief from tampering with its contents.

While the crew crowded the opening of the hatch above them Sir Francis and the boatswains went down, each carrying a lighted lantern, and knelt in the bottom of the hold to examihe the seals that the Dutch Governor of Trincomalee had placed on the entrance.

"The seals are intactV Sir Francis shouted, to reassure the watchers, and they cheered raucously.

"Break the hinges!" he ordered Big Daniel, and the boatswain went to it with a will.

Wood splintered and brass screws squealed as they were ripped from their seats. The interior of the strong room was lined with sheets of copper, but Big Daniel's iron bar ripped through the metal and a hum of delight went up from the spectators as the contents of the compartment were revealed.

The coin was sewn into thick canvas bags of which there were fifteen. Daniel dragged them out and stacked them into a cargo net to be hoisted to the deck. Next, the ingots of gold bullion were raised. They were packed ten at a time into chests of raw, un planed wood on which the number and weight of the bars had been branded with a red-hot iron.

When Sir Francis climbed up out of the hold he ordered all but two of the sacks of coin, and all the chests of gold bars, to be carried down to his own cabin.

"We will divide only these two sacks of coin now," Sir Francis told them. "The rest of your share you will receive when we get home to dear old England." He stooped over the two remaining canvas sacks of coin with a dagger in his hand and he slit the stitching. The men howled like a pack of wolves as a stream of glinting silver ten-guilder coins poured onto the planking.

"No need to count it. The cheese-heads have done that job for us." Sir Francis pointed out the numbers stencilled on the sacks. "Each man will come forward as his name is called," he told them. With excited laughter and ribald repartee, the men formed lines. As each was called, he shuffled forward with his cap held out, and his share of silver guilders was doled out to him.

Hal was the only man aboard who drew no part of the booty. Although he was entitled to a midshipman's share, one two-hundredth part of the crew's portion, almost two hundred guilders, his father would take care of it for him. "No fool like a boy with silver or gold in his purse, he had explained reasonably to Hal. "One day you'll thank me for saving it for you." Then he turned with mock fury on his crew. "Just because you're rich now, doesn't mean I have no more work for you," he roared. "The rest of the heavy cargo must go ashore before we can beach and careen her and clean her foul bottom and step the new mast and put the culver ins into her. There's enough work in that to keep you busy for a month or two."