"Suppose you tell me all about this engagement you were in, Captain—er—Rogers."
Scott told him, detailing what he thought needed amplification. Before he was finished Sir Percy was openly intrigued. "Extr'ord'n'ry, captain! Most extr'ord'n'ry! I know that things like this come off after every war, but they've never come off where I was. And this is the second instance I've heard of."
"So?"
"Aye, man. Demme if your General Andrew Jackson—feller they call Old Hickory—didn't slaughter poor General Sir Edward Pakenham and a couple of thousand of Wellington's veterans at New Orleans just the other day. Just heard of it. After the truce was signed in Ghent, too. Damned wars are getting too global, eh? Man can't keep up with things."
"What's the solution in our case?" Scott demanded bluntly. "We're not pirates."
"Damned if I know, sir, be damned if I do. We can't punish Jackson, so I see no reason to make an example of you. On the other hand, I can't let you keep this ship. You wouldn't want to be branded as a pirate, would you?"
"Of course not, but—" Scott broke off abruptly, meeting the speculative gaze of the Englishman.
"We could knock you apart in half hour, sir," Sir Percy said calmly. "In fact, I've left orders with the first lieutenant to move in and open fire if I'm not back in my own ship inside of the hour. Will you throw more lives away ... on piracy? Your own government wouldn't support you under the circumstances. Couldn't, you know."
You've got me there, Scott thought forlornly. The war's over, and I'll have to go home without a penny to show for ten months at sea. He glanced at the drifting Jasper, now settled deep.
Sir Percy pressed him. "You can return to your own ship, taking what was yours. Some strong backs at the pumps should keep you afloat long enough to make an American port. Or I'll take the lot of you into Kingston as distressed seamen."
Scott repressed a sigh. "We'll go home in the Jasper. But first, could we borrow the services of your surgeon? Captain Rousseau, you know, and Captain Tait . . ."
"Of course, captain; most certainly." Sir Percy cleared his throat and smiled without malice or triumph. "Er—well— fortunes of war, and all that. Captain—er—Rogers. Why don't you let me revictual your ship from our stores? We've plenty and to spare."
Scott looked at him in surprise. Then he found his tongue. "Thank you, sir. You are very kind."
"Not at all, man; not at all. Rather admire a good fighting man. Hate to see him lose his shirt. We'll stand by while you transfer to your own vessel."
3
LONGING for his wife, yet somehow dreading the moment of meeting because he still was a penniless seafarer, Scott stood in the Jasper’s bow as she limped into Charleston harbor. He was weary, bone-weary, as was every able man in the ship; for they had been at the pumps day and night, with only short breaks for rest, for eleven days. Peary stood nearby, frowning slightly; and, looking at him, Scott's dislike approached acute envy. His brother-in-law had no troubles: his father could stand the loss incurred; and he himself didn't have to come home with a prize in order to bolster his own self-esteem. He thought suddenly of what the man had said to him in a blaze of temper and wryly admitted to himself that it was true: he did want to come home with pockets full of money, and he did want to be a hero in Rowena's eyes.
"I reckon Rowena'll be down to meet us," Peary said casually.
Scott hoped so. Nobody, probably not even Rowena herself, ever would know how much he wanted to see her. He knew he wasn't too good at saying such things. And he knew that word had preceded them in the fast-sailing sloop that had overtaken them two days before. They'd put Rousseau and one of the more critically wounded sailors in the craft, which promptly had shown the water-logged Jasper her heels. Some of the bitterness went out of him when he reflected that Rousseau definitely was on the mend.
Looking out over the whitecaps in the spacious harbor, shivering in the raw January wind, Peary spoke again, still casually. "I think I'll get drunk tonight."
"Damn it all," Scott burst out angrily, "why did that British frigate have to show when she did? A few more hours and we would have been away from there. Now I've got to put to sea again as soon as I can get a ship."
"I wouldn't think seafaring was much of a life for a married man," Peary said conversationally. "Do you really like going to sea?"
"Not particularly. But since leaving the orphanage I've known nothing else. It's been a way of existing; and it was all right before I met Rowena. But now I want something better . . . not just for me, but for us."
"Maybe you can find work in Charleston."
"Doing what? Clerking for some merchant? Selling ribbons to ladies? Or groceries? The hell with that. I want to be my own man. When I was a boy I worked on the orphanage farm, and I sort of liked seeing things grow."
"You can't do your own work in plantation country, man. You'll need niggers to chop cotton and whatnot."
"What I need is land. The rest will follow." Scott checked himself, amazed at his own loquaciousness. Then he continued grimly. "In time I'll get what I want. .. what we want."
Peary rubbed chapped hands together and changed the subject abruptly. "This damned raw weather is terrible after being in the Caribbean. I still think I'll get drunk tonight."
Tonight. This time the word stirred memories in Scott, heating his blood so that he forgot the cold. He had known women in a dozen ports in half as many lands before meeting Rowena. Most of them had been hard and bold, but none had been loving. Loving! That was the word for Rowena, he thought. She came to him without experience in the art of love, but she loved him truly and for that reason sought to please him. Maybe that was why she was the only woman ever to lay claim to any part of his heart. For her he wanted to achieve things undreamed of before she entered his life. He couldn't shrug off his disappointment in not bringing home treasure to lay at her feet.
In midafternoon they tied up at a pier owned by Philip Peary, father of Rowena and Clay, and Scott looked anxiously for his wife among the crowd of people who had come to meet the ship. His spirits dropped even more when he could not spot her.
"Hey!" Peary exclaimed. "There's Abe, our houseboy. . . . Abe!"
The white-wooled Negro trotted toward the Jasper.
"Hey, Abe," Peary shouted, "where is everybody? Where's Master Philip . . . Miss Rowena?"
The slave rubbed his slack mouth with the back of a big, pink-palmed hand. "Tha's whut I come to tell you, Mas' Clay. Yo' pa, he at de house. An' Miss Rowena—Miss Rowena— she . .."
His hesitation triggered apprehension in Scott. "Out with it, boy!" he rasped. "What about Miss Rowena?"
"Miss Rowena, suh—she—Miss Rowena ..."
Peary lunged for the old man and caught him by the lapels of his warm coat. His face was white and drawn. "Goddammit, boy, what about Miss Rowena? Speak up!"
"She—she done dead, Mas' Clay."
Scott felt that he had been hit by a massive hammer. His senses reeled drunkenly under the blow of the half-whispered words. Dead. Rowena . . . dead. He opened his mouth and closed it without saying anything.
Peary grabbed his arm tightly and shouted in his ear. "Scott! Did you hear, Scott? Did you? She's dead!"
"I heard," Scott said numbly. His voice seemed to come from far away.
"I—I come to fetch you gen'lemun," Abe said anxiously. "You wanted at de house."
Peary started first, lunging into the crowd on the pier, pushing people aside savagely, the Negro tagging at his heels. Scott, however, remembered that he was the captain; he couldn't just rush off. He set his jaw hard, fighting for control of himself. She can't be dead, he thought. She can't be. But still he knew Abe hadn't lied.