For a moment, he rode in the air, swung back and forth by the tentacle that held his leg, like a doll in the hands of a child. Then he was slammed against the stern of El Trinidad; he gripped the railing of the aft cabin, and held on with one painful arm. With the other he used the ax to hack at the tentacle, which finally released him.
He was free, for a moment, and very close to the creature, which churned in the waters below him. He was astounded by its size. It seemed to be eating his ship, holding fast to the stern with its many tentacles. The very air glowed with the greenish light the thing gave off.
Directly beneath him, he saw one huge eye, five feet across, larger than a table. The eye did not blink; it had no expression; the black pupil, surrounded by glowing green flesh, seemed to survey Hunter dispassionately. Further astern, the body of the creature was shaped like a spade with two flat flukes. But it was the tentacles that captured his attention.
Another snaked toward him; he saw suckers the size of dinner plates, rimmed with horns. They tore at his flesh, and he twisted to avoid them, still clinging precariously to the aft cabin railing.
Above him, the seamen were firing down on the animal. Enders shouted, “Hold your fire! It’s the Captain!”
And then, in a single swipe, one of the fat tentacles knocked Hunter free of the railing, and he fell into the water, right on top of the animal.
For a moment, he churned and spun in the green glowing water, and then he gained his footing. He was actually standing on the creature! It was slippery and slimy, like standing on a sac of water. The skin of the animal — he felt it whenever he fell to his hands and knees — was gritty and cold. The flesh of the creature pulsed and shifted beneath him.
Hunter crawled forward, splashing in the water, until he came to the eye. Seen so close, the eye was huge, a vast hole in the glowing greenness.
Hunter did not hesitate; he swung his ax, burying it in the curved globe of the eye. The ax bounced off the dome; he swung again, and yet again. Finally the metal cut deep. A gush of clear water spurted upward like a geyser. The flesh around the eye seemed to contract.
And then suddenly the sea turned a milky white, and his footing was lost as the creature sank away, and he was drifting free in the ocean, shouting for help. A rope was thrown to him, and he grabbed it, just as the monster surfaced again. The impact flung him into the air, above the cloudy white water. He crashed back again, landing on the saclike skin of the monster.
Now Enders and the Moor leapt overboard, with lances in hand. They plunged their lances deep into the body of the creature. Columns of greenish blood shot into the air. There was an explosive rush of water — and the animal was gone. It slipped away, down into the depths of the ocean.
Hunter, Enders, and the Moor struggled in the churning water.
“Thanks,” Hunter gasped.
“Don’t thank me,” Enders said, nodding to the Moor. “The black bastard pushed me.”
Bassa, tongueless, grinned.
High above them, they saw El Trinidad begin to turn, and tack back to retrieve them.
“You know,” Enders said, as the three men treaded water, “when we return to Royal, no one will believe this.”
Then lines were thrown down to them, and they were hauled, dripping and coughing and exhausted, onto the deck.
Part VI
Port Royal
Chapter 34
IN THE EARLY afternoon hours of October 20, 1665, the Spanish galleon El Trinidad reached the east channel to Port Royal, outside the scrubby outcropping of South Cay, and Captain Hunter gave orders to drop anchor.
They were two miles from Port Royal itself, and Hunter and his crew stood at the railing of the ship, looking across the channel toward the town. The port was quiet; their arrival had not yet been sighted, but they knew that within moments there would be gunshots and that extraordinary frenzy of celebration that always accompanied the arrival of an enemy prize. The celebration, they knew, often lasted two days or more.
Yet the hours passed, and there was no celebration. On the contrary, the town seemed to grow quieter with each passing minute. There were no gunshots, no bonfires, no shouts of greeting across the still waters.
Enders frowned. “Has the Don attacked?”
Hunter shook his head. “Impossible.” Port Royal was the strongest English settlement in the New World. The Spanish might attack St. Kitts, or one of the other outposts. But not Port Royal.
“Something’s amiss, sure enough.”
“We’ll soon know,” Hunter said, for as they watched, a longboat put out from Fort Charles, under whose guns they were now anchored.
The longboat tied up alongside El Trinidad, and a captain of the king’s militia stepped aboard. Hunter knew him; he was Emerson, a rising young officer. Emerson was tense; he spoke too loudly as he said, “Who is the avowed captain of this vessel?”
“I am,” Hunter said, coming forward. He smiled. “How are you, Peter?”
Emerson stood stiffly. He gave no sign of recognition. “Identify yourself, sir, if you please.”
“Peter, you know full well who I am. What does it mean—”
“Identify yourself, sir, on pain of penalty.”
Hunter frowned. “What charade is this?”
Emerson, at rigid attention, said: “Are you Charles Hunter, a citizen of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and late of His Majesty’s Colony in Jamaica?”
Hunter said, “I am.” He noticed that despite the cool evening breeze, Emerson was sweating.
“Identify your vessel if you please.”
“She is the Spanish galleon known as El Trinidad.”
“A Spanish vessel?”
Hunter grew impatient. “She is, plain as your nose.”
“Then,” Emerson said, taking a breath, “it is my sworn duty, Charles Hunter, to place you under arrest on a charge of piracy—”
“Piracy!”
“—and so, too, all your crew. You will please accompany me in the longboat.”
Hunter was astounded. “By whose order?”
“By the order of Mr. Robert Hacklett, Acting Governor of Jamaica.”
“But Sir James—”
“Even as we speak, Sir James is dying,” Emerson said. “Now please come with me.”
Benumbed, moving in a kind of trance, Hunter went over the side, into the longboat. The soldiers rowed ashore. Hunter looked back at the receding silhouette of his ship. He knew that his crew was as stunned as he.
He turned to Emerson. “What the devil is happening?”
Emerson was more relaxed, now that he was in the longboat. “There have been many changes,” he said. “A fortnight past, Sir James took ill with the fever—”
“What fever?”
“I tell you what I know,” Emerson said. “He has been confined to bed, in the Governor’s Mansion, these many days. In his absence, Mr. Hacklett has assumed direction of the colony. He is assisted by Commander Scott.”
“Is he?”
Hunter knew he was reacting slowly. He could not believe that the outcome of his many adventures, these past six weeks, was to be clapped in jail — and no doubt hanged — as a common pirate.
“Yes,” Emerson said. “Mr. Hacklett has been stern with the town. Many are already in jail, or hanged. Pitts was hanged last week—”