Meshod Pimenta, who'd kept quiet thus far, jumped forward and seized Delacroix's hand. He was shaking with fright and all his instincts told him to keep out of this, but Selena was a woman, and Meshod Pimenta had a mother and sisters, as well as a wife.
"Don't!" he said. "Don't hit her!"
"Keep out of this… Jew.'" said Delacroix.
Pimenta stood in agony. Delacroix was a member of the planter aristocracy, the most powerful class in the colonies. The Jews were accepted in Charleston, with a new synagogue on Union Street to prove it, and Pimenta did much business among the gentiles, including Delacroix himself… but… but… there were those who wanted no Jews — some of the Anglicans and Dutch Protestants, for instance — so he dared not make an enemy of Delacroix. Pimenta stood back.
"Good!" said Delacroix. "Now, Constable… take her in charge!"
Granger stepped forward, producing a set of manacles from his coat pockets.
Selena looked round, head ringing from the blow. There was no help. She had only herself. She wrenched free. She slipped her hands through the slits in gown and petticoat, to the pocket hoops beneath that shaped the gown: linen bags stiffened with cane and ideal for the little things ladies carried. But Selena was a lady who'd lived among Flint and his pirates, and her hands came out with a pair of pistols: short in the barrel, wide in the bore. She levelled them both at Delacroix.
"You'd never dare!" he said, and laughed. He might have been right, for Selena had no plan, her hands were trembling and the pistols were shaking madly. But Delacroix made a mistake. He grabbed her. "Come here, you nigger bitch!"
CRACK! CRACK! The pistols went off together. One — jammed against Delacroix's vest and its trigger deliberately pulled by Selena — seared the silk and dropped him to his knees, fumbling at the hole blown into his vitals, and gulping and choking as the living colour drained from his face, leaving a pallid expression of infinite disbelief.
"Uuuuuuuuh…" he said in his death-gasp and fell, face down, on the floor.
"God help us!" said Pimenta, seeing ruin for himself and all his kin.
"Oh…" said Granger, weakly, "oh, my liver and lights…" And with that he slumped beside Archibald Delacroix. The second pistol — discharged convulsively with the first — had picked its own target and sent a ball fairly into him.
Now there were two dead men in Meshod Pimenta's Hall. Two dead men and a runaway slave who was making a habit of murder.
Chapter 23
Flint was called from sleep after a day of exhausting work. It was dark and Walrus was rolling gently at her moorings when a boat bumped alongside, the boatman shouting and yelling. Selena was brought aboard and fell into Flint's arms, tearful and frightened, which delighted Flint, who assumed she was appealing to him as her saviour and champion.
But the reality proved more complex, and even as he took her in his arms and closed his eyes in pleasure, she was in a turmoil. Certainly there was relief at being within his protection, but she was morally exhausted by her need to keep him alive, yet to control him — if she could — and somehow find some independent future for herself, if only she could escape the gallows, having — this time — just committed undoubted murder.
If that wasn't enough, she looked around and saw that the ship was full of Indians: fierce Patanq warriors, many of them sleeping on deck because there was no room below. The ship stank of them, a sharp animal smell. They rose and stood like silent grey statues: bizarre, exotic, and wrapped in their blankets with guns enfolded in their arms.
She didn't know what to do for the best, so she calmed herself as best she could, and simply told Flint everything that had happened that evening. What else could she do? And he listened and smiled in pride.
"Two of them! Two? God bless my precious soul!" He kissed her. The crew stared. The Patanq looked on impassive. Flint laughed. "My little tigress!" he said. "My Amazon, my chickie!" He swung her off her feet and kissed her again. Then he frowned.
"The boatmen," he said. "They'll know!"
"Leave them," said Selena. "They're Pimenta's men.
But Flint trusted nobody. Not when he didn't have to.
"Allardyce!" he cried. "Get 'em aboard. Now!" But the boatmen had been listening. They shoved off and pulled for their lives.
"Shall we sink the buggers, Cap'n?" said Allardyce. "All guns is loaded."
"No," said Flint. "We'd wake the anchorage." He turned to Selena.
"What about Pimenta? What'll he do?"
"He'll hide the bodies, and his household's sworn to silence. They're all slaves, Joe, under fear of being sold away. They won't dare talk…" she paused. "And he said to tell you…"
"Tell me what?"
"He says he's got to tell the navy."
"Oh, has he now?"
"Yes. He has to think of his reputation. But he'll wait till tomorrow."
"How kind!"
"He said there's an ebb tide just before dawn."
"And?"
"He'll wait till it turns before he tells the navy. To give you a chance."
"Hmm…"
"And he said… he said… he still wants to do business with you, if…"
"God in heaven and all his angels!" said Flint.
He laughed. He laughed long and loud, with a hot, unholy laughter, and the crew looked on. Some laughed with their captain, but not the brighter sparks among them. They knew it wasn't healthy. Not when he laughed like this. Flint had been a new man since leaving the island, and better still since he took to gazing at Miss Selena. But it looked like the old Flint was coming back, and there wasn't a man present who didn't shudder at the prospect, not even when they outnumbered him so many times over, and every man of them was armed, 'cos with Flint, a blade or a pistol might be no more defence than empty hands.
Then Flint stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. He smiled and stood up straight and took command, and Walrus was made ready for sea at utmost speed. A boat was sent to Captain Bentham aboard Hercules, warning him to do the same, and to do it in silence. Another boat was sent to Van Oosterhout aboard Lucy May, ordering the Dutchman to take the Patanq fleet to sea so soon as Flint was cleared and gone.
So… topmasts and yards were sent up, anchors and cables got in, boats hoist aboard as they returned, log line, sandglass and lead made ready, and breast lines secured in the chains for the leadsman. And all this was done quietly. The very windlass pauls were muffled with rags, and there were no shanties, no bosuns' calls, no shouted orders — not even a boot up a seaman's behind to help him on his way.
Other ships in the anchorage — honest merchantmen — made all the noise they wished, ready to sail on the ebb tide, and welcome to it. They had no reason to avoid the attention of King George's four ships and seven hundred men, still quietly anchored and mostly asleep.
With dawn coming up on the Atlantic, the tide rolled out past Fort Johnson and the miserable little fleet bearing the women and children of the Patanq nation. These poor creatures waved and called to Walrus, Hercules and Sweet Anne as they thrashed past under an easterly with the Patanq warriors standing straight-backed, unmoving and seemingly unmoved. But in the privacy of their minds, they trembled at this alien, ocean adventure, having no experience to guide them in all the history of their people, and trusting only in the wisdom of their leader.
Through sheer necessity, Flint had given Bentham the island's latitude and sailing instructions, but he planned to sail in company, for neither Bentham nor Captain Parry of Sweet Anne was a navigator capable of finding a pin-prick on the empty ocean, and Flint needed all his three hundred fighting men. This worked well until mid afternoon, in bright sunshine and calm seas, when the weather turned flat and dull and calm, and the wind — which had been erratic from the start — died away completely.