"Where will you keep us-until the ransom is received? My wife is a lady of quality and delicate disposition."
"In a safe place, and in comfort. That I assure you, sir." "Where will you meet the ship returning with our ransom monies? "At thirty-three degrees south latitude and four degrees thirty minutes east."
"Where, pray, might that be?"
"Why, Governor van de Velde, at the very spot upon the ocean where we are at this moment." Sir Francis would not be tricked so readily into revealing the whereabouts of his base.
In a misty dawn the galleon dropped anchor in the gentler waters behind a rocky headland of the African coast. The wind had dropped and begun to veer. The end of the summer season was at hand; they were fast approaching the autumnal equinox. The Lady Edwina, her pumps pounding ceaselessly, came alongside and, with fenders of matted oakum between the hulls, she made fast to the larger vessel.
At once the work of clearing her out began. Blocks and tackle had already been rigged from the galleon's yards. They took out the guns first. The great bronze barrels on their trains were swayed aloft. Thirty seamen walked away with the tackle and then lowered each culverin to the galleon's deck. Once these guns were sited, the galleon would have the firepower of a ship of the line and would be able to attack any Company galleon on better than equal terms.
Watching the cannon come on board, Sir Francis realized that he now had the force to launch a raid on any of the Dutch trading harbours in the Indies. This capture of the Standvastigheid was only a beginning. From here he planned to become the terror of the Dutch in the Ocean of the Indies, just as Sir Francis Drake had scourged the Spanish on their own main in the previous century.
Now the powder kegs were lifted out of the caravel's magazine. Few remained filled after such a long cruise and the heavy actions she had fought. However, the galleon still carried almost two tons of excellent quality gunpowder, sufficient to fight a dozen battles, or to capture a rich Dutch entrept on the Trincomalee or Javanese coast.
When the furniture and stores had been brought across, water casks and weapons chests, brine barrels of pickled meats, bread bags and barrels of flour, the pirmaces were also hoisted aboard and broken down by the carpenters. They were stowed away in the galleon's main cargo hold on top of the stacks of rare oriental timbers. So bulky were they and so heavily laden with her own cargo was the galleon that to accommodate their bulk the hatch coamings had to be left off the main holds until the prize was taken into Sir Francis's secret base.
Stripped to her planks, the Lady Edwina rode high in the water when Colonel Schreuder and the released Dutch crew were ready to board her. Sir Francis summoned the colonel to the quarterdeck and handed him back his sword and the letter addressed to the Council of the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam. It was stitched in a canvas cover, the seams sealed with red wax, and tied with ribbon. It made an impressive -bundle, which Colonel Schreuder placed firmly under his arm.
"I hope we meet again, Mijnheer," Schreuder said ominously to Sir Francis.
"In eight months from now I will be at the rendezvous," Sir Francis assured. "Then I shall be delighted to see you again, as long as you have the two hundred thousand gold guilders for me."
"You miss my meaning, "said Cornelius Schreuder grimly. "I assure you I do not," responded Sir Francis quietly. Then the colonel looked to the break in the poop where Katinka van de Velde stood at her husband's side. The deep bow that he made towards them and the look of longing in his eyes were not for the Governor alone. "I shall return with all haste to end your suffering," he told them.
"God be with you," said the Governor. "Our fate is in your hands."
"You will be assured of my deepest gratitude on your return, my dear Colonel," Katinka whispered, in a breathless little girl's voice, and the colonel shivered as though a bucket of icy water had been poured down his back. He drew himself to his full height, saluted her, then turned and strode to the galleon's rail.
Hal was waiting at the port with Aboli and Big Daniel. The colonel's eyes narrowed and he stopped in front of Hal and twirled his moustache. The ribbons on his coat fluttered in the breeze, and the sash of his rank shimmered as he touched the sword at his side.
"We were interrupted, boy," he said softly, in good unaccented English. "However, there will be a time and a place for me to finish the lesson."
"Let us hope so, sir." Hal was brave with Aboli at his side. "I am always grateful for instruction."
For a moment they held each other's eyes, and then Schreuder dropped over the galleon's side to the deck of the caravel. Immediately the lines were cast off and the Dutch crew set the sails. The Lady Edwina threw up her stern like a skittish colt and heeled to the press of her canvas. Lightly she turned away from the land to make her offing.
"We also will get under way, if you please, Master Ned!" Sir Francis said. "Up with her anchor."
The galleon bore away from the African coast, heading into the south. From the masthead where Hal crouched the Lady Edwina was still in plain view. The smaller vessel was standing out to clear the treacherous shoals of the Agulhas Cape, before coming around to run before the wind down to the Dutch fort below the great table-topped mountain that guarded the south-western extremity of the African continent.
As Hal watched, the silhouette of the caravel's sails altered drastically. He leaned out and shouted down, "The Lady Edwina is altering course."
"Where away?" his father yelled back.
"She's running free," Hal told him. "Her new course looks to be due west."
She was doing precisely what they expected of her. With the south-easter well abaft her beam, she was now heading directly for Good Hope.
"Keep her under your eye."
As Hal watched her, the caravel dwindled in size until her white sails merged with the tossing manes of the wind driven white horses on the horizon.
"She's gone!" he shouted at the quarterdeck. "Out of sight from here!" Sir Francis had waited for this moment before he brought the galleon around onto her true heading. Now he gave the orders to the helm that brought her around towards the east, and she went back on a broad reach parallel with the African coast. "This seems to be her best point of sailing," he said to Hal, as his son came down to the deck after being relieved at the masthead. "Even with her jury-rigging, she's showing a good turn of speed. We must get to know the whims and caprice of our new mistress. Make a cast of the log, please."
With the glass in hand, Hal timed the wooden log on its reel, dropped from the bows on its journey back along the hull until it reached the stern. He made a quick calculation on the slate, and then looked up at his father. "Six knots through the water."
"With a new mainmast she will be good for ten. Ned Tyler has found a spar of good Norwegian pine stowed away in her hold. We will step it as soon as we get into port." Sir Francis looked delighted: God was smiling upon them. "Assemble the ship's company. We will ask God's blessing on her and rename her."