on her, that she'd given him her body, her affection, and her foolish trust, her… love! Her skin crawled at the recollections of how they'd, how he'd…! "Vous etes fumier!" she cried. "You have already hurt me to my very soul, you… 'Bloody'!"
Charite dashed her sleeve over her eyes again, blinked her vision clear of tears, took a breath and let it out slowly, found the instant of perfect stillness, and fired.
Phfft-tack!
The ball hit him square in the chest, just under his heart, and the force of it punched the air from his lungs, slugged him backwards to splay over the forward-most thwart with his head on the jolly boat's damp soleboards.
Merciful God! Lewrie frantically thought as agony engulfed him, unable to draw breath, vision darkening; I'm killed!
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ah-yee!" Fusilier Balfa cheered her accuracy, all but clapping his oar-chafed, bleeding hands. "Vivat, mam'selle!"
"Hell wit' dat," his father, Boudreaux, snarled, dragging them to sobriety. "Dat only slow 'em down for de little while, den dey really be mad wit' us. Gotta get a lead on 'em. Row or die, chers."
And, for a few minutes, it seemed as if Charite's awesome shot had bought them a lead. The Anglais' rowing boat had come to a stop, the pirogue, going alongside it, and both receded into the lingering bay mists. Balfa bade Charite to bear off Nor'westerly to throw them off, and reach the closest maze of marshes, cypress and mangrove swamp, not Lake Barataria, which lay due North.
Both men were spent, though, the act of rowing a muscle-searing agony. Their breath roared like a forge bellows as they panted for air, and both were hang-dog, drooling with exhaustion.
"Oh, mon Dieu." Charite gasped as she fearfully looked over her shoulder and spotted the much faster pirogue off their starboard quarter, re-emerging from the haze. "They have found us, messieurs." Sure enough, the paddles flashed more quickly, and the pirogue swung about to run parallel with their boat, just out of pistol-shot. The sailor in the middle of the pirogue held a musket at the ready.
"Sorry, cherie, " Boudreaux Balfa wheezed, letting his oar slide aft. "Can t
do no more. We tried." He pulled a pistol from his belt and let it lay in his lap, handing the other to his son.
Charite abandoned her steering oar and test-cocked her weapon; a snap of the trigger only produced a faint hiss. Its unreliable buttstock flask was expended. In spite of that, she levered a ball into the breech and brought it to her shoulder, the pretence of a ready gun more of a final act of defiance. A way to die in battle.
"Hoy!" the paddler and steersman seated in the stern of the pirogue shouted as he set aside his paddle and took up a musket as well. "Hoy, Boudreaux Balfa… ye auld cut-throat!" he added, sounding nigh cheerful, not threatening. "Ye auld mud-foot!"
"Who dat?" Balfa warily called back, squinting in confusion.
"An auld shipmate o' your'n!" the man hooted. "One ye didn't reco'nise when ye marooned 'im on th' Dry Tortugas… come t'take ye in, Boudreaux!"
"An' who be dat?" Balfa quickly asked, laying a cautioning hand on his son's gun-arm to force it down. "Bide, cher … we ain't taken yet," he whispered with a disconcerting wink. "May not be."
"Ye knew me as Patrick Warder, Boudreaux! Though th' Navy knows me as Toby Jugg! Throw yer weapons over-side and put up yer hands."
"Nom d'un chien!'"Balfa exclaimed. "Ol' Paddy Warder? Ah-yee, you little t'ief! Stole a hundred Anglais pounds offa me and run off. Damn if I don't forgive you dat, long ago, and now you wanna arrest me and my son here, Fusilier, let de British courts hang us bot' an' end my patrie, by Gar? Dat he hard, Paddy… damn' hard."
"Shoulda swung years ago, Boudreaux," Toby Jugg called back. "I figger this'll be delayed justice. Why I jumped ship an' run, 'coz I couldn't hold with wot you let 'at ol' demon Lanxade git away with in th' last war. Waddn't privateerin', but murd'rin' piracy…"
"An' you steal my moneys. You a saint, Paddy? Swear, I didn't know you, all dat fine beard ya got, cher, " Balfa cajoled, playing for time. "All dese years, too. By Gar, I know you, den, I'da let you go in a spare boat, wit' no harm. Always liked you, Paddy, you know dat!"
"Oh, aye!" Toby Jugg snickered. "Right! Give it up!"
"My boy Fusilier be innocent, Paddy, dis his first trip, swear! Mort de ma vie!" Balfa wheedled, open-handed with his pistol below the boat's side. "Fine, you take me for hangin', 'cause I prob'ly done sin enough for it, some time in de past. Can't recall, but… let Fusilier and dis sweet mam'selle go, Paddy. You want see a pretty jeune fille like her on de gibbet, kickin' an' stranglin' in de noose, an' no one t'pull her legs t'make it quick?"
"She lowers 'at damn' rifle o' hers or she dies right here an' now," Jugg gruffly promised. "She's th' Cap'm's girl from New Orleans. One 'at went a'piratin' as a man. One 'at killed him, too, an' all's a reason fer her t'do th' 'Newgate Horn-pipe,' Boudreaux."
"He is surely dead?" Charite interrupted, aiming at the sailor amidships of the pirogue, but her gaze darting to Jugg.
"Looked hellish like it 'fore we paddled after ye, miss, aye." "Bon," Charite cold-bloodedly stated. "Good."
"Guess ya got us, den, Paddy," Balfa said with a weary sigh of surrender. "An' dis was my last trip, too. Be damn' hard, though, to get cotched an' die wit'out a chance t'spend dat Spanish silver we got away wit'. Hope mes amis an' neighbours have joy of it. Ah-yee."
"What silver?" Dempsey, the armed sailor, demanded. "You t'ink I plan t'quit de old trade, I don't fiddle my ol' ami Jerome Lanxade?" Balfa chuckled. "How much silver you find, 'board dat Spaniard, hah? Eight hundred t'ousand or so, was all, when we'd took two million! Oh, dey be a pile left on Le Revenant, but… you ask Paddy, dere. We promise de crew six millions, but de Spanish send it in three boats, an' dis mornin' was gonna be grim when dey find out we don't have it."
"Ye cheated yer auld mate, Jerome, did ye, Boudreaux? I alius knew ye were a greedy auld shark, by God!" Toby Jugg mirthfully mused. "Where is it, then?" Dempsey snapped.
"Mes amis, 'Cadien friends o' mine, take it away las' night," Boudreaux Balfa explained, shrugging. "Don' even tell me where it be, 'til I gets back home on de bayou, Paddy. I don' go back, dey'd split it… leave my poor 'Vangeline a bitty share. I do get back, I'd get all my share. Won' tell you where it be buried, by Gar, 'cause you're outsiders, an' Anglais to boot. Same th' same sort who kick us outta Canadian Acadia, kein? Go huntin' it, dey most-like kill you an' feed you to de pig an' 'gator, dem," Balfa slyly, "sorrowfully" told them. "Ah… how much ye git away with, then?" asked Mannix, the sailor in the bow of the pirogue, his mouth agape in greed.