He had tried to explain to Maisie that when he went to England, soon, he would certainly seek out, among others—he did not mention his father the Earl of Tillinghast, who was high on his list of those-to-be-seen—her seducer. Sir Jervis Johnston. He had sworn that, and he'd do it. That would be personaclass="underline" it would be directly and entirely for love of her. But this affair on Cay Cucaracha—
She'd have none of the explanation. His intent to call out Jervis Johnston she had never appeared to take seriously anyway, but she was impressed, and deeply touched, by the fact that Adam had killed Major Kellsen. That was immediate, undeniable. It was not part of a dream seated in the future: and Lady Maisie could understand it. His protests were swept aside as evidence of his too great modesty. She cried repeatedly that he shouldn't have done it for her. She insisted upon fussing over him.
So he let her. If a woman is bound and determined to believe something, he reasoned, it was better to agree. After all, it was pleasant. It was ridiculous in one sense, true—Maisie demanding that he lie still while she fetched him this and fetched him that, and washed him, and anxiously brought him things to eat and drink, quite as though he was near death, whereas he hadn't a scratch on him and wasn't even tired, not having had to row either way—but in the long run it soothed, it flattered. Besides, the attitude reassured Adam. Feeling sneaky, feeling disloyal, he had from time to time recently caught himself wondering if maybe the tropical sunshine had brought out in Maisie a certain crassness he had not previously supposed was there. She was not, or not always, the same girl he had known on the schooner. It was not just that her unconcealed and even exuberant enjoyment of their intimacy somewhat shocked Adam Long, who had more than once caught himself blushing, too, at her habit of exposing her body; it was also, and perhaps even more, the way she looked and acted in public—a note of shrillness had crept into her voice, a touch of tautness at the corners of her mouth. He loved her, and thoughts like this were a torture for him to bear. But now he felt better about it. Now he knew beyond doubt that she loved him. It wasn't only a matter of words: it was a lot more than that. It wasn't just the way she had thrown herself into his arms, down there on the beach. It was a feeling he had when he was with her. She had been stirred, a condition she couldn't have concealed if she'd wanted to. Through all her fussing, silly as some of it was, this truth stuck out. She loved him.
So he lay back and enjoyed it. A man doesn't get that kind of attention every day, and there was no reason why he shouldn't have a good time.
As far as his physical condition was concerned, he was able to prove to her beyond all doubt that it was excellent; and this, too, he enjoyed, though it was disconcerting to have that crowd surging and stewing outside, scarcely beyond reach, sometimes even causing the walls of Tarpaulin Hall to sway, and never quiet. But you can get used to anything, he learned.
Once in the night he woke up and lay for a time staring at a ceiling he couldn't see and thinking, unexpectedly, of Major Kellsen.
Kellsen was dead and you shouldn't think of him any more, Adam knew. Nobody else here did. He heard the sounds of the camp, where there was no respect for the clock and where a most prodigious celebration was going on. Those men and women out there, by no means unaided by rum, had worked themselves into a frenzy of admiration for him, Adam Long—admiration that almost approached, sacrilegiously, adoration. The fight on Cucaracha was the first part of the process of being built into a legend; and Adam was its hero. Liked before, now, by tarnation, he was fairly revered. This threw him ofiF, for it was not at all what he had sought; and he wasn't sure that popularity was a good thing to have on Providence Island in the Bahamas this year of Our Lord 1702.
Kellsen had sought popularity and achieved a certain measure of it, and who thought of Kellsen now? Kellsen was the only man Adam Long had ever killed, but he felt no squeamishness about this. He was not proud of himself, but he wasn't ashamed of himself either. It had been a job of work, and he'd done it. He'd had his reasons. The results flummoxed him—all this clamor and praise—but he still thought that he'd done what he should have done, and if he'd had to do it over again he would do it the same way.
But Kellsen—didn't anybody think of him? Kellsen only a few hours ago had been a man of some magnificence. Something between a pouter pigeon and a peacock perhaps, but a man all the same, with a man s heart, a man's feelings. He, too, had risked everything. The only difference between him and Adam was that he had lost, Adam had won. And because Kellsen had lost he was forgotten. So far as Adam knew, nobody had even taken the trouble to go back to the middle of Cockroach Key and view the body, much less bury it. And when they landed on the beach here, Adam had spotted one pirate wearing that high full flamboyant periwig of Kellsen's, while three or four others wore coats that had belonged to the dead man. So early! It did seem indecent. They had a curious outlook on the matter of property here at Providence. Any man would snick his knife out in a dispute about sixpence; but that was cash, and different. The same man would gladly give you, or at least sell you for a song, weapons, articles of clothing, pieces of furniture, which indeed constituted something close to communal property. Kellsen's wardrobe, in other words, had become the possession of the men who got there first. But it did seem, all the same, as though they might have waited a little while.
Adam had despised Major Kellsen until he killed him. Now he was not at all sure that he didn't feel sorry for the man.
Maisie moaned a little in her sleep, and he looked at her, his heart going all jelly. He could be a hero outside: he was humble here. Loveliness like that, his to touch and take, lying beside him, was a heap of responsibility. Here was an angel! He swallowed, and that was hard to do. Yet when she moaned again stirring a mite, and gave a small sad sigh in her sleep, so that he saw the silk coverlet rise and fall over the outlines of her breast, he knew that he was going to wake her up. And sure enough, pretty soon he did.
The call came early, along with the dawn, a sudden sharp rapping on the door. Adam sat up, sucking in his breath.
Maisie was awake, and she watched him. She, too, was frightened.
Sternly: "Yes?"
"Message from Captain van Bramm."
"That's what I was afraid of," whispered Adam.
For in camp the talk was all Long, Long, Long, the redoubtable skipper from Newport, the captain who had skewered—what was his name? This was not at all what Adam sought. He was willing to accept popularity if it meant power—in the right place. But he wanted no part in the politics of this pirates' nest, a settlement that was a stench under the nostrils of civilization and was tolerated temporarily only because the Dutch and English and French and Spanish navies were too busy with their war to stamp it out. He owed more than that, and much more, to Maisie. He owed it to Horace Treadway, whose passage payment he had accepted; and to the burghers of Newport, whose schooner he commanded. Yes, and by thunderation, he owed it to himself! He simply couldn't afford to be an idol.
It was not too be supposed that Everard van Bramm, hearing all these hysterical shouts of praise, and doubtless many lower, more serious, but equally fervent whispers as well—for the man heard everything—would permit such a state of affairs to continue. But what would van Bramm do? Adam had seen the man only once, and then briefly, for van Bramm seldom came out into the open air. In those moments Adam had sized him up as a man not easily sized up. Would van Bramm, who himself cared nothing for praise, though he did care for power, make Adam an offer—suggest, say, that Adam go on being the man on the pedestal while he, van Bramm, manipulated the machine? Or would van Bramm simply strike? If he struck, there would be no warning. That much Adam was sure of.