Amanda was extremely angry at this prank as, although there was nothing actually indecent about Clarissa's get-up, she thought it most unseemly that her young cousin should invite ribald comments from the seamen by appearing in such a garb. But to send her back to her cabin was clearly out of the question, for at the first sight of the lovely mermaid the whole ship rang with lusty cheers of appreciation from the crew, and she was at once invited to take the part of Mrs. Cancer, as far surpassing the sailor who had been selected for that role.
While the ship's fiddler scraped away vigorously, and the men roared out the chorus of "What shall we do with a drunken sailor?" the neophytes were 'baptized' by having a cross marked in ink* on their foreheads, had their faces lathered with a huge brush, were shaved with a wooden razor two feet long, given a beating with ropes' ends and finally thrown into the canvas pool. The poor little Supercargo was given a terrible time and only rescued at the plea of the Mermaid Queen, but the initiation of Monsieur Pirouet proved the high-spot of the day. He showed such intense resentment at having to submit to the ceremony that he received a worse baiting than any of the others and his furious struggles to escape only provoked general mirth. At length Clarissa managed to beg him off further indignities, but not before his beautifully waxed moustache had been ruined; and for several days afterwards even Georgina could not induce him to utter a word.
It was on November the 19th that another storm blew up and, by ill-luck, one the severity of which was quite exceptional in those latitudes for that time of year, as the hurricane season was in the summer. Again the Circe's masts were stripped of canvas and her hatches battened down, while the wind tore at die rigging and heavy seas thudded on her decks. However, the ship's situation was at no time as critical as it had been during the two worst days of the tempest she had met with off the northern tip of Spain, and her passengers now having been for seven weeks at sea were far better conditioned to stand up to the violent motion. Georgina, Nell and Roger went down with short bouts of sickness, but the others suffered only discomfort, and Clarissa once more thoroughly enjoyed herself. The storm parted them from the schooner which had been their companion all the way from Madeira, and they now missed her familiar presence; but the most annoying thing about it was that for the best part of three days the Circe had to run before the storm, which drove her to the north-westward and over five hundred miles out of her course.
This was particularly infuriating. for Roger, because had the wind continued fair for a further two days they should have sighted Martinique. On his appointment as Governor of the island, their - original plan had been modified to the extent that his party was to be dropped off there while Charles's went on to Jamaica; and, if it proved practical, they would exchange visits after Christmas. This would have made no difference to Circe's schedule, as the normal course for ships sailing to Jamaica was to pass between Martinique and St. Lucia. It was this which had caused the islands to the south and north of that Channel to be named the Windwards and the Leewards respectively; and after leaving them to left and right Jamaica-bound ships completed their voyages by a five-day cruise inside the semi-circle that they formed.
But now Circe had been carried up to a point some distance north of the Virgin Islands; and Captain Cummins said that, since any attempt to thread a way between the innumerable rocky islets dotted about them would be fraught with grave danger, he must pass outside Porto Rico, then tack down the channel between that island and Santo Domingo. Roger therefore had no option now but to go on to Jamaica and take a ship back to Martinique from there, which would mean a delay of at least a fortnight before he could nope to assume his Governorship.
On the second day after the storm abated they made a landfall on Porto Rico, and all that afternoon ran along within sight of the big island's north coast. As its dense forests ran right up to the tops of its mountains it appeared to be uninhabited, but they were near enough to make out groups of tall palms dotted along its shores and the line of white surf creaming on its golden beaches. At this first glimpse of the green and azure playground they had come so far to enjoy the passengers were thrilled, but they were given something much less pleasant to think about early next morning.
As dawn broke Porto Rico was still in sight and Circe was about to round the western end of the island. The channel between it and the eastern end of Santo Domingo was some eighty miles in width, but another ship lay almost directly in her path. The other was a three-masted barque painted from bulwarks to waterline a greenish-yellow colour and would have made her almost unnoticeable had she been lying up in a cove with her sails furled against one of the islands for background. It was this unusual colour which immediately aroused the suspicions of Circe's First Mate. Having bawled an order to "about ship", he ran down to fetch the Captain.
By the time Captain Cummins, bleary-eyed and clutching about him a revoltingly soiled chamber-robe, reached the poop, the barque was already crowding on more sail and standing out towards them. Within a matter of minutes all hands were on deck, anxiously staring astern, though the early morning haze prevented them from getting a very clear view of the craft which looked as though she was bent on pursuit
Roused by the shouting, the passengers soon learned the disquieting news, and hurriedly pulling on their clothes came out to join the
Captain on the poop. By then there could be no mistaking the strangely coloured barque's intent to come up with them; but she was still some two miles distant and the Circe, now heading north-west to clear the invisible point of Santo Domingo, was scudding along on a good brisk breeze.
That morning, November the 24th, no breakfast was cooked or eaten; for everyone in the Circe too much depended on whether she could outdistance her pursuer for any other matter to be given a thought. Both ships set staysails, stunsails and flying jibs, and heeled far over in the water under every inch of canvas they could carry. As the morning advanced the sun blazed down from a cloudless sky, and with visibility now perfect it became evident that the gap between the two ships was slowly closing. For sailing powers they were fairly evenly matched, but the Circe was heavy laden and the barque in ballast, which made all the difference.
At eleven o'clock the barque called on her quarry to halt by firing her forward gun. The shot fell a hundred yards short, but at intervals of ten minutes others followed, and the fourth crashed into the Circe's stern.
Amanda was standing beside Roger. Her grip on his arm tightened a little as she asked anxiously: "What is likely to happen if they capture us?"
"Nothing very terrible," he replied: and while he wished to reassure her he believed that he was giving her a reasonable forecast, as he went on: "It will be deucedly inconvenient and damnably expensive, but it is unlikely they will do us any injury. Should we have to surrender they will put a prize crew on board and sail Circe to their home port. If she's French that will almost certainly be in Guadeloupe, as the recapture of that island last spring again gave France a base in the West Indies. But she may be American, and if so we would be carried much farther from our destination. In either case I fear it would be months before we reached Martinique, as privateers sell the ships they capture and demand ransoms for passengers and crew. But they operate on licence from their governments, so are under an obligation to treat their captives honourably as prisoners-of-war."