He read it over three times, stupefied, before he caught the meaning. He looked around the room and saw that the big trunk was gone, along with its contents. She hadn’t even left him a copy of the Book of Common Prayer.
John hadn’t the strength to curse. Moving cautiously, lest his head fall off and shatter, he pulled on his clothes. He reflected that he was slightly better off than if he’d gone out drinking with Hairy Mary from the Turtle Crawl; she’d have taken his raiment and his sea chest too.
He went to the window and looked out. He could see five ships on the horizon, three of them already far out to sea, and Mrs. Waverly might be on any of them. As he stood there, running over the events of the past months in his mind, he remembered the four pearls he’d got when he’d looted the Santa Ysabel’s great cabin. He’d kept them in their twist of paper, like peas in a pod, tucked in his spare shirt.
Opening his sea chest, John looked down at his clothes, that Mrs. Waverly had laundered and neatly folded. He rummaged through them. Lying atop the crossed arms of his spare shirt he found the twist of paper. On it she had written: Pray excuse my little frailty.
He sighed.
Walking along in the gloom before sunrise, John spotted the Revenge moored at the common landing by King’s Wharf. Men were offloading boxes of china, silently and swiftly, and Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley stood in quiet conversation with a merchant. Money exchanged hands. The china was trundled away on a cart. Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley were turning to go back on board when they spotted John.
Clearly, they had been ashore with money to spend. Sejanus had a fine black coat of watered silk to match his hat, and a silver-topped ebony walking stick. Mr. Tudeley had gotten a fearsome new tattoo on his chest, of a grinning skull above crossed bones. It was still bleeding slightly. To their credit, neither of them laughed as they watched John come slinking up with his sea chest on his shoulder.
“The lady changed her mind about marrying, did she?” said Mr. Tudeley. “I thought as much. Not really a suitable girl, old fellow.”
“We’re about to sail,” said Sejanus. “Coming aboard?”
“It’s only for a cruise or two,” said John. “Just until I make enough of a pile to set myself up in a shop.”
“To be sure,” said Sejanus, with a straight face.
They went aboard the Revenge. Before the sun rose she was under sail, well past Deadman’s Cay, bound for Tortuga.