"He was horrible," Gianna shuddered. "He meant it."
Our Ned nodded in agreement. "When they told Mr Yorke they'd kill her if the frigate came close I - well, I ain't trying to save my neck, sir, but murdering a lady in cold blood was more than I can stomach-"
"What did you do?" Ramage asked.
"I argued with them, sir, but it didn't do no good. Then the frigate didn't board us anyway. Then Mr Yorkc came along and said about Coruña being blockaded, and us not being able to get in without being intercepted. Seemed to me we couldn't avoid a frigate catching us and that meant the Marchesa would be murdered and we'd still be taken prisoner.
"I tried to persuade them to agree to Mr Yorke's proposal for a smaller port that wasn't blockaded, but they wouldn't have none of it; they'd set their hearts on Coruña. One of 'em had been there and said he could recognize it. Well, that was a sort of turning point for me. I thought about it all over again and decided I wanted none of it - murdering the Marchesa or handing the ship over to the Dons. So when it was my spell to guard the Marchesa tonight I waited until the man I relieved was asleep and freed her, and we all crept out."
Gianna was shaking her head as he concluded. "Nicholas - it was much more dangerous for him than that. And the boys - they were terrified, but Our Ned reassured them - all in a whisper so the rest of the men didn't wake up, and then they were really brave."
"How did you get the key to the leg-irons holding the Marchesa?" Yorke asked the seaman.
"It was kept on a hook, sir."
Ramage held the man's arm. "Will the mutineers bear out your story that you didn't help?"
Our Ned grimaced. "They'll kill me if they get the chance."
"They won't," Ramage said. "Don't worry about a court-martial. If you've told the truth you'll be safe enough, I guarantee that. This night's work more than makes up for the past. Now, we'll have those two boys in here and thank them; then you'd all better get some sleep."
He turned to Southwick. "We'll leave sentries on the forehatch for the rest of the night. We don't want to risk any more bloodshed. By the way," he said to Our Ned, "Harris isn't dead: he's in irons, along with the Bosun, who was only slightly wounded."
Our Ned's jaw dropped. "Phew, I hope you've got some good men guarding him, sir!"
"Don't worry; Maxton has turned him into a lamb."
Our Ned shuddered and for a moment his eyes remained fixed, as if staring at some terrifying picture. "Yes," he muttered, "Maxton could do that..."
Gianna stood up and put her arms round Ramage. "Darling, I'm glad we didn't have to try out your other plan!"
"Would it have worked?"
"I don't think so," she said soberly. "I was going to try it, but that crazy man Our Ned told you about - I think he would have killed me, and you'd have never known."
Our Ned looked puzzled, and Ramage was curious to know if the man agreed with Gianna.
"When Rossi spoke to the Marchesa this afternoon - yesterday afternoon, I mean - he told her to pretend she had gone off her head and start screaming. I hoped that -"
But Our Ned was shaking his head. He drew a finger across his throat in an unmistakable gesture.
"It was our only hope," Ramage said lamely, "we'll be off Cabo Finisterra in a few hours."
"I know that, sir; that's why I got the Marchesa out tonight."
Chapter Twenty
The first person to sight the English coast four days later was Rossi, and his hail from the masthead that he could just make out land broad on the larboard bow secured him the guinea Ramage had offered earlier in Lisbon. It also confirmed Southwick's latitude sight at noon, when his calculations put the ship thirty-five miles south-west of the Lizard.
Two hours later, as the Lady Arabella surged along before a brisk west wind, with a scattering of cloud, they could see enough from the deck to recognize the high land of the Lizard, now slowly drawing abeam as the packet headed for Plymouth. "Probably the first time she's not rounded the Manacles and slipped into Falmouth," Yorke commented. "Could probably find her own way in."
And every mile up the River Fal would have taken Ramage closer to St Kew, to Blazey Hall, where his father and mother would be waiting, anxious to know what had happened in Lisbon; whether he and Gianna were safe. Suddenly he felt an almost overpowering nostalgia for his home, mingling with a deep love for Gianna, who even now was standing beside him at the taffrail.
More than a year had passed since he had looked astern over the taffrail of the Triton brig at the Lizard dropping below the horizon. Since then, he blushed at the recollection, he had had a couple of affairs, ones which left no nostalgia, only pleasant memories - and been nearly killed four times. Five, if you included the Bosun's attempt. And he had lost the Triton after a hurricane. Yes, it had been a busy time and the months had passed quickly. But the next few days would pass slowly enough to make up for it.
So now, although off the Portuguese coast he had despaired of ever doing so, he was looking at the Lizard again, and with him were Southwick, Jackson, Stafford, Rossi, Maxton and a few more of the Triton's original crew.
The Lizard meant all things to all men. The last sight of England for many great sailors - and pirates and smugglers and scallywags too. Drake had looked back on it at the beginning of his last voyage - and had been buried at sea off Portobello, thousands of miles away on the Spanish Main. Henry Morgan, freed from arrest after ingratiating himself with Charles II, who had then made him a knight, looked back on it as he returned to Jamaica to become its governor and continue as the most successful pirate the Caribbean had ever seen.
It had been the last sight of an oppressive country - countries rather, since many on board were Dutch - for those in the Mayflower; the first sight of the country he was supposed to conquer for the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the troops embarked in the Spanish Armada.
And, he grinned to himself, a welcome sight for Lieutenant Ramage and for the Marchesa di Volterra, otherwise Gianna, otherwise a small and black-haired girl with a mouth slightly too large for classical beauty, and deep brown eyes, and bosoms whose promise kept him awake at night, and a temper which could be imperious or flare like Etna on a dark night, and a love which knew no limits...
He suddenly realized Southwick was standing in front of him.
"Sorry sir," the Master said, guessing that the sight of the Lizard was stirring up memories, "but we can bear away, to north-east by east, and if the wind holds we'll pick up the Eddystone an hour after daybreak."
"Very well," Ramage said, "and I'd better get below and start preparing the paperwork."
Plymouth ... the Commander-in-Chief, if he was there, otherwise the Port Admiral, would be waiting for a sheaf of returns, since the Lady Arabella was sailing under Admiralty, not Post Office orders. Ramage cursed because he did not have the necessary stationery. Now he had to try to remember the headings on the dozen and one standard forms he was expected to have filled in and ready on arrival.
Anyway, the worst of the paperwork was done: the most important was the report for Lord Spencer. The mutiny had simplified everything, Yorke pointed out: Ramage had written half the report before it started and had been sitting at his desk preparing to complete it only a few minutes before the Lady Arabella's Bosun sneaked in with a pistol in each hand. The mutiny should convince the First Lord that there was treachery in the Packet Service.