“But you’ve got a mouth. We can’t have you running around loose telling what happened back there. If word got around my fellow privateers would lose faith in me.”
“I’ll be silent as a corpse!” I told him desperately. “I promise you!”
“No, laddie. I promise you.” Morgan smiled grimly. “You’ll be silent as a corpse because that’s what you’ll be.” He tinned to the crewmen watching the scene. “Throw him to the fishes,” he commanded.
I was hustled over to the railing. A plank was thrust through the gunwale and I was forced to mount it. I turned for one last, pleading look at Morgan. “I’m a lousy swimmer,” I told him plaintively.
“Don’t worry about it,” he counseled. “You won’t have to swim for long.” He pointed. A school of sharks was trailing lazily along in the wake of the ship.
Before I could answer, one of the pirates had jumped up teeteringly behind me on the plank. He slid his kerchief neatly over my eyes and blindfolded me. A second later the plank dipped as it was relieved of his weight. I balanced there stubbornly, refusing to budge, too terrified to move.
A swordpoint pierced my pantaloons and I inched forward despite myself. “Nervous bastard, ain’t he?” Scattered guffaws followed the remark. Again the blade prodded me forward. When the maneuver was repeated a third time, I ended up at the very edge of the plank. I knew that, even though I was blindfolded, because I’d had to pull back from the last of my cautiously balanced steps when my foot dipped into thin air. “Now dance for us, matey!” a Limehouse voice ordered. The heel of one foot was pricked by a sword point. I lifted the foot. Immediately my other foot was pierced. I lowered the first foot and raised the second one. I danced. “Don’t get your skirts wet!” More guffaws. “Get it over with, you sea scum!” Captain Morgan’s voice. A sharp pain in the rear and I took one last step forward.
I’d walked the plank and now there wasn’t any more plank left to walk. I plunged into darkness towards the waiting jaws of the sharks below. My ears rang with one last laugh from Captain Morgan, scourge of the seven seas. I flicked my wrist radio frantically and screamed for help.
What I got was an announcer’s voice oiling into a commerciaclass="underline" “And now,” he intoned, “a word from Charley the Tuna . . .”
Chapter Eight
TI-IE BLINDFOLD WAS RIPPED FROM MY EYES AND I FOUND myself looking down the snout of a Russian bear. The Russian bear said something to me in a language I didn’t understand. It might have been any bear lingo, but I presumed it was Russian. I didn’t answer. I was speechless.
With reason. The Russian bear was dressed in an evening gown from the neck down. Her companions were equally amazing. Beside her stood a devil in full evening dress, a pitchtork in his hand, a forked red tail protruding from his rear. Crowding around this ill-matched pair were the Greek god Pan, an Arabian shiek in full regalia, a tigress, Joan of Arc, two Vikings, a caveman, three harem dancers and a whole slew of other disparate personalities. They were all chattering the bear language, which I didn’t understand.
I didn’t even try. I was too busy trying to orient myself. I’d walked the plank, but instead of landing in the briny, I’d evidently come to roost on a plush sofa in the middle of a dimly candle-lit, but equally plush room. In the course of my blindfolded leap, I’d knocked over a coffee table. I deduced this because the table was still lying on its side and my shin smarted where I’d barked it. Also, I must have hit my wrist because the switch had flicked off and the radio wasn’t operating. I could only hope it hadn’t been permanently put out of commission.
The bizarre company in which I found myself didn’t seem as surprised at my appearance as they might have been. Part of this was due to the dim lighting, part to the fact that some sort of masquerade party was obviously in full swing and a pirate was no more out of place than a Norse god or an American Indian, and part to the great amount of liquor which had obviously been consumed prior to my arrival. When I didn’t reply to any of the babbling directed at me, the Russian bear simply shrugged and tied the blindfold over the eyeholes of the devil’s mask. He began floundering about the room with the others in his wake and the party flowed away from my vicinity.
I had a chance to catch my breath. The questions in my mind were the same old questions: where was I and in what time? The costumes around me weren’t much help in answering them. They said I might be anywhere from ancient Babylon to Spain during the Inquisition.
Rising from the couch, I sidled over to a window, hoping a view of the outdoors might provide a clue. It was a large door-window and there was a balcony outside it. A large courtyard fell away from the balcony. Many carriages, horses and some men were congregated there. It was defined by a high brick wall. Beyond the wall, as far as the eye could see, was a flat plain covered with rolling drifts of snow. The balcony was piled knee high with the snow. In the courtyard it was tamped so solidly it was turning to ice. Wherever and whenever I was, something told me the climate was cold.
Having made that brilliant deduction, I studied the men in the courtyard. They were obviously servants—- coachmen, footmen, whatever—since their garb was poor and pretty much all the same and since they were on the outside of the party. Most of them were huddled around a small fire in the courtyard, trying to keep warm while they waited for their masters and mistresses to finish their revels. The clothes these lackeys wore was of a style found only in Russia. The terrain and what I could see of the architecture confirmed the locale.
All right. So I was in Russia. But when?
It was not to be long before I pinpointed the time. Skirting the edges of the party, I wandered, trying to decide on some course of action. The masquerade wouldn’t last forever. When it ended, then what?
I happened into a small room beside the one where the festivities were in swing. It was dark. Draperies hung on the far wall, concealing another window. I slipped between them for another look outside. It was unedifying. Only more snow. Before I came out from behind them, I heard two people enter the room and start to talk in whispers.
I stayed put. They were speaking German. I was able to understand what they were saying.
“I tell you he is here, Grigori!” A female voice.
“But why? How would he know—?” Deep, male, agitated, speaking German with a pronounced Russian accent.
“I don’t know. But it’s very dangerous. Do you think he suspects—-?”
“Our love? Yes, Sophie. I think he suspects that. We have not been as circumspect as we should have been. Palace gossip.”
“I don’t mean that, Grigori.” Her tone was impatient. “He wouldn’t care about that. But his life. That’s another matter.”
“He is the Tsar after all, Sophie. He must always walk in fear of his life. He must always be suspicious of those who are closest to him, of those who would have the most to gain from his death. And who would have more to gain than you, Sophie? You are his wife. You are the Tsarina.”
“But his being here. That might be more than ordinary suspicion. It’s almost as if he knows we’re plotting to depose him in the next few days.”
“Are you sure he’s here, Sophie? Then how is it that I haven’t recognized him?”
“You danced with him!”
“I? You’re mad!”
“You forget yourself, Grigori!”
“I most humbly beg your pardon, my Tsarina, mly beloved Sophie, my revered Catherine, Mother of all the Russias!” There was the thud of knees hitting the floor, of lips apologetically smacking at a royal hand. “But how could I have danced with Tsar Peter and not have known it?”
“Do you remember the wood nymph with the head of a goat?”
“The slender young girl with the bare legs?” he reflected. “Yes. But those legs! They were slender and curved and feminine!”