"Ah, Mr Silver," said Cowdray, "I rejoice to see you awake." He blinked guiltily and added, "I regret that you were left alone. I ordered this wretch to stay with you." He looked disparagingly at Jobo. "But it would seem Captain Flint gave him a bottle and a guinea, and told him to get drunk."
"Aye," said Israel Hands, "but we found the bugger, put a bowline under his arms and heaved him over the side on a line to the yardarm, then all hands hauled him up and down and dunked him till he was sober." He leered at Jobo. "You're right enough now, ain't you, shipmate?"
"Aye…" said Jobo uncertainly.
"You'd better be!" snapped Selena. "You," she said to Israel Hands, "stay with him. I'm putting you in charge!"
Cowdray's eyes widened, as Flint's had done, to see a black slave-girl giving orders among men, and Long John tried to laugh. But the effort sickened him and he fainted.
When he recovered, only Israel Hands and Jobo were there. They were bickering and yarning and playing dice for each other's share of the loot. Long John looked at them in fright. He doubted if the pair of them together could keep Flint off, should he choose to come back.
Chapter 24
George Hastings and David Povey sat in the incredibly cool, elegant room and clutched their drinks. Remembering the long thirsty days, Hastings took a swallow. It was some sort of fruit juice, but like no fruit he'd ever tasted. He emptied the goblet and set it on a table.
Don Felipe Avilia Carreño, Governor of Trinidad, caught his eye and smiled. He spoke slowly, carefully, in Spanish, trying to make himself understood.
Instantly Hastings struggled to his feet, and Povey got up beside him, blinking and frowning.
"I'm sorry, sir," said Hastings, "it's no good — we can't speak Spanish."
"No-no-no!" said Don Felipe and rushed forward to help them back into their seats. Though much recovered, they were still very weak. But at least they were clean — their filthy clothes having been removed and laundered while they slept. Even their uniform coats had been carefully brushed and the brass buttons polished.
Don Felipe turned at the sound of quick footsteps from
the corridor outside, and doors swung open to admit a lady followed by two maids.
Once again, Hastings and Povey shot to their feet, this time entirely appropriately, for they needed no Spanish to tell them that they were in the presence of a great lady.
As Dona Alicia Maria O'Donnell de Avilia Carreno entered, doors closed smoothly behind her, maids deployed left and right to stand as statues, and her husband the governor stood forward, bowed and kissed her hand. She was a woman in her forties, statuesque and of regal bearing.
Hastings and Povey stood to the strictest attention of which they were capable, and bowed as Don Felipe presented them. She smiled.
"I came as soon as I could," she said in excellent English — easy for a girl who'd grown up in Dublin. "Mr Hastings, Mr Povey — you are heroes! You shall be returned in triumph to England, at the head of your men, and my husband shall send a letter telling of everything that you have achieved."
For thirty long days, Hastings and Povey had acted like men, and brave men at that. They'd taken command, made decisions, overcome threats and never wavered in doing their duty. They had, in addition, thoroughly absorbed the lower deck's morbid dread of Spain. After all they had endured, the kind words of this lady proved more than they could bear… for George Hastings was just fourteen years old and David Povey was twelve. They began to tremble and shake.
Dona Alicia looked at the tall but desperately thin Hastings, who'd sprouted, as some boys do, without filling out to a man's strength. And she looked at the childlike Povey. However grand she might be, she was a woman, and she was touched to the heart.
"My brave boys," she said, stepping forward to embrace them. This broke the last of their reserve and the midshipmen were reduced to tears.
Don Felipe motioned to the maids to leave the room, and quietly went out after them.
Within three months Hastings and Povey were back in London, their promotion assured, Society at their feet. Henceforward, both would be driven by a grim determination to see Joseph Flint pursued, captured and hanged.
Chapter 25
"Diem adimere aegritudinem hominibus!" said Mr Cowdray, as the latest dressing came off Long John's stump. "D'you know your Horace, Mr Silver?"
"No," gasped Long John, teeth and fists clenched in anticipation of the pain that came with any handling of his wound. Even now Jobo was hanging on to one of his arms while Israel Hands held the other. Long John had thrown himself clear out of the hammock during previous dressing changes, what with his fighting and screaming.
"In other words," said Cowdray, '"Time heals all wounds'!" And with that he deftly removed the last of the long-tailed ligaments that hung out of Long John's stump. This wretched remnant of a powerful limb looked like the fat end of a leg of lamb on a butcher's hook, only paler. But there was no trace of inflammation, and granular scar tissue was forming, fresh and healthy, over the raw end, with the bone well covered and invisibly buried within.
" Venienti occurrite morbo, as Persius has it," said Cowdray. "Which is to say: 'Meet the disease in its first stage' — as indeed we have, and so effected a cure."
Cowdray was blathering on in Latin because he was delighted with this beautiful stump, and proud of his undoubted feat in saving Silver's life despite his appalling injury. As he chattered and applied a fresh dressing, Silver found to his surprise that there was no pain in Cowdray's attentions. This was a first. Silver finally began to believe that he might recover.
When Cowdray was done, he washed his hands in a bowl, rolled down his sleeves and came and smiled at his patient.
"Well, sir!" said he, unconsciously adopting the manners he'd used so long ago to respectable patients in his private practice: merchants, aldermen, even noblemen. "It is my pleasure to be able to promise you a good recovery, and it is in my mind to have you up and about for the fresh air. What d'you think of that, sir?"
"Aye," said Israel Hands, "the lads'd like that. What say you, Long John?"
Long John hesitated. Even the bravest of men are worn down by constant pain, and he was afraid of being hurt if they moved him. Cowdray recognised this at once.
"Mr Hands," said he, "bring another two men so we can hoist him up in his hammock without jolting or disturbing him. And be so good as to have all made ready above."
Hands frowned. He was not accustomed to taking orders from a sawbones. He looked instinctively to Long John.
"Aye," said Silver weakly.
So up he went in his hammock, still sickly and dizzy, but with no pain as four men shouldered a spar with the hammock slung beneath it and got him up on deck with the wonderful agility that sailormen have for shifting awkward loads. And it was worth the effort. Long John's spirits soared. The air was sweet and clean on the quarterdeck after weeks of hot confinement below decks. He could smell the salt breeze and see the fullness of the sails as they drove the ship on. He could see the gulls that hung in her wake.
Best of all, the men cheered as he appeared on deck. They crowded round him, laughing and joking and offering him fruits and grog. Tears came to Long John's eyes and he was perilously close to breaking into sobs at the sincerity of a greeting which was motivated purely by the pleasure of seeing him. Even Flint's followers were cheering. Just for that instant, the whole ship was united in happiness.