"Couple hundred t'ousand, wasn't it, Fusilier? You counted dem kegs," Balfa asked his son.
"More dan dat, Papa," Fusilier chimed in, cleverly catching his father's drift, and marvelling at the old man's craftiness.
"You let us go, we could go shares," Balfa hesitantly pretended to hint.
"Ah, but you go back to your Navy, dere's no way you'd trust moi t'get de moneys to you, ah-yee. So I guess we all gotta go broke."
"Fack th' Navy." Dempsey snickered, lowering the muzzle of his musket a trifle. "Wot kinda share we talkin' of, mister?"
"Here, now, Dempsey!" Jugg warned him. "He's a sweet-tongued auld imp o' Hell, he is, an' most-like ain't got tuppence left. Cap'm Lewrie trusted-"
"Cap'm's dead as mutton, Toby," Mannix sourly pointed out. "I 'flow ye, Cap'm Lewrie woz a decent sort, but now he's gone, who's to take charge o' Proteus… one more o' them top-lofty, floggin' shites… a piss-proud, Irish-hatin' English officer-bastard? No thankee!"
"We're way out here," Dempsey seconded. "Outta sight o' anybody. Who's t'say we didn't get kilt by th' pirates we woz chasin'? We don' go back, nobodyil come lookin' after us. Best o' th' ship's off'cers ain't like Cap'm Lewrie, Toby… no skin off their arses if they come up a few Irish hands short. Not with all th' silver still aboard 'at prize schooner t'caper over."
"An' didn't we alius plan t'take 'leg-bail' o' th' Navy, iff'n a prime chance turned up?" Mannix eagerly seconded. "Think, man! We get listed 'Discharged, Dead,' 'stead o' 'Run,' an' no one'll ever be seekin' us! Free an' clear, an' in money, t'boot! How much in pounds is yer silver, then, mister?" he greedily asked Balfa.
A keg apiece, Balfa alluringly told them. A thousand dollars in silver was 250 English pounds, a lifetime's earnings to the average tar, and that set them to gabbling again. Balfa hid his smile; all the rest would be "negotiations." They'd already become a pack of putains… now they were haggling over their bed price!
"Capitaine/" Charite desperately interrupted, aghast that he 'd betray her, too; her heart broken anew over the loss of her last illusion. "If you and your friends keep all our money, you lavish it on Anglais!… there's nothing left for our revolution! Would you have my brothers die for nothing} Don't you want to be French again?"
"Moonshine from de start, girl," Balfa snarled, snatching that rifle from her numb hands. "Money's always what matter! Dis toy gun outta air, mes amis, don' worry 'bout her! Your mates go along, so what you say, Paddy, mon vieux}" He hated to do it to her, but…
"I've a wife an' two babes on Barbados, Boudreaux," Jugg morosely said, sighing. "A bitty plot o' cane, bought clean, but we've worked damn' hard an' honest t'git it, keep it. I'd lose it all, if… "
"Send for 'em," Balfa breezily suggested. "How big your place?"
"Five acres."
"By damn, Paddy!" Balfa laughed. "Land in de piney-wood, north o' New Orleans… back o' Baton Rouge?… go for penny an acre, not a arpent! Keg o' silver buy you a plantation, big house, fine coach, an' a regiment o' slaves! Be set for life, you."
Toby Jugg-Patrick Warder or Tobias Hosier, and an host of aliases he'd given ship captains over the years-looked at Mannix and Dempsey's childlike, prompting expressions, knowing that if he didn't agree, they'd mostlike shoot him down, so eager they were to desert. Without Capt. Lewrie, what would he be? A new captain would bring a "pet" to supplant him as Quartermaster's Mate, reduce him to being an Able Seaman again. But, if he was "dead," his name cut from ship's books and Admiralty registers… and with a pile of money…!
"Ye're still a thief, Boudreaux," Toby Jugg allowed at last. "One keg, me arse! Five keg a man, an' no debt o' auld I owe ye, for ye said ye forgive it long afore."
"Ah-yee!" Balfa cried, all but tearing his bushy grey hair out at the roots. "You starve my famille, starve my chickens! Five kegs, mon cul! Two, an' be damn to ya. You live good on two kegs, that's five hundred pounds! North Loosiann ' be fulla heretic Protestants an' I hope dey burn ya! Fulla 'Mericains an' skinflint Yankees who take de coin off your dead mother's eyes. You deserve t'live dere, Paddy!"
"Four kegs, Boudreaux," Jugg countered. "After all, wot's your life worth, you an' yer son's?"
"Mist be burnin' off," Boudreaux pointed out suddenly. "We'd better get along, chers. Your men row dis boat, 'cause we played out, but we can still paddle ^.pirogue …"
"Not without a firm price an' yer Bible oath on it, Boudreaux," Jugg insisted. "They spot us, we'll remember we're 'True Blue Hearts O' Oak' an haveta settle fer our share o' th' prize money. Let's say three kegs an' have done."
"Mon Dieu, merde alors!" Balfa surrendered, knowing that his old shipmate Toby Jugg was right. "T'ree keg each, my word on it," he said, crossing himself.
"Mannix, you get in their boat. Boy, you come into ours, and I'll thankee for yer 'barker,' " Jugg ordained. "We'll tow you on a short painter 'til we strike th' far shore. Fire off a shot ever' now an' then… your pistols first, o'course, t'keep 'em guessing back down South. Miss? Ye want t'play a man, well… take up 'at oar an' help Mannix row 'til auld Boudreaux's got his wind back. No harm will come to ye, me own oath on't. Jus' sing small an' be thankful ye still got breath in yer body, for ye slew a decent man… for an officer… an' he did right by me, I tell ye."
Charite slumped down on the sternsheet thwarts, knees drawn up, and her arms hugging her breasts. Everything she'd had in life was lost and gone, even her last, leery trust in "dear old" cheerful Capitaine Balfa, who had just sold her out! She would live, the Anglais sailor swore; she'd return home… but to what?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Oh, God," Capt. Alan Lewrie weakly whimpered, his hands shakily feeling over his chest. His head lay cradled in Cox'n Andrews's lap, and Andrews was gently undoing his waist-coat and shirt buttons. Air! Pain/ He could barely draw breath, and his heart thudded so strongly and quickly, it felt like a kettledrum at a bloody concert. Hot pain thrummed knot-like 'twixt his stomach and sternum.
"Be easy, sah!" Andrews commiserated. "Easy! I'm bloody dyin' and… ow! Damme, but that hurts!" Hold, a tick! Lewrie puzzled; Heart's bangin' like a racehorse! Hurts, but… what the bloody Hell?
"Ya ain't killed, sah!" Cox'n Andrews wondrously exclaimed. "Ya ain't even bad shot, praise de Lord!"
Lewrie fumbled at his bared chest, coughing and still gasping for breath, each one searing pain through him. His fingers came away smeared with blood! "What d'ye call this, then, damn my eyes!" he querously quibbled.
"Faith, sor," Liam Desmond, one of his oarsmen, cried, holding a silvery.51 calibre rifle ball 'twixt thumb and forefinger. "Found it on th' soleboards, sor! Must o' bounced right off ya, sure. Shot went pish! 'stead o' crack! Like that duck ya shot comin' upriver, sor… when th' air-flask was spent? Mother Mary, but you're th' lucky'un an' there's a tale for th' tellin', Cap'm, sor!"