"She became greatly worried by William's silence, but no whit less devoted to him; and at last the time came when her parents could no longer postpone breaking it to her that she must forget him, and that they were sending her to France where she was to make a splendid marriage.
"You can imagine their consternation when, instead of protesting and fainting, as they expected her to do, she told them she could not accede to their wishes because she was already married.
"An earthquake could hardly have created a greater upheaval in the household. By threats and abuse they had the whole story out of her that night From her description of the man who she said had married her to William they recognized the Houngan, and sent for him. Threatened with being sent to the galleys, he confessed to having performed the ceremony, and disclosed that it was I who had persuaded «im to unite them by the Catholic ritual.
"By morning the de Taschers had convinced themselves that I had led Josephine into the affair against her will, and that she was the innocent victim of my wicked wiles. That was not altogether true, as she had been overjoyed at the chance to marry William clandestinely; and I shall always hold it against her that she made no effort whatever to defend me when their wrath descended on me like a cyclone.
"They took from me all my pretty clothes and all the presents they had ever given me. They had me stripped naked, tied to the whipping-post and flogged. Then they sent me out to labour in the cane fields. To act so they were fools; for I told everyone the reason for my disgrace, and the story of Josephine's secret marriage went the round of the island. I did not remain in the cane fields long, either. Knowing the house so well it was easy for me to burgle it. One night about a week later I took from it all the valuables I could lay my hands on and made off to the port. In return for part of my loot an old woman that I knew there had me smuggled aboard a ship that was sailing for St. Vincent in the morning, and ever since I have sailed the Caribbean seas."
"You are lucky, Madame," Amanda remarked, "to have led so desperate a life for so long without being either killed or seriously injured."
"I have a charmed life," Lucette replied quite seriously. "In Martinique there was an old coloured woman with some Irish blood whose gift for fortune-telling was infallible. She told me when a girl that I would live a life of wild adventure and witness many fights, but could not be killed by bullet, by steel or by rope; only by a fall from a high place. And you may be certain that nothing would induce me to go up into the rigging, or take any similar risk."
Enthralled by her story, Roger asked: "Did you ever learn what became of Josephine?"
Lucette shrugged. "Some three years later I ran into my brother in Antigua. He told me that Josephine and the de Taschers had declared the story I had put about to be a malicious invention from start to finish; and that she had, after all, gone to France and made a fine marriage; but I know no more than that."
For some while they talked on; then the party broke up, and the prisoners went on deck to enjoy the cool of the evening. Again they slept well, but on coming into the saloon for breakfast they found Bloggs and Lucette awaiting them with long faces.
The bad news was soon told. Some members of the crew were evidently opposed to making the long voyage down to Martinique, and had formed a secret league against them. When the pirate who acted as bos'n had gone down to the hold that morning to supervise the drawing off of the day's water ration, he had found that the spigots of the last remaining full casks had been pulled out, so that the water in them had run to waste. And that was not all. Between two of the casks Pedro the Carib was lying dead with a knife through his back.
As none of them had the least reason to feel affection for Pedro, and his capabilities as a captain left much to be desired, they did not regard his death as a major calamity; but they were much concerned by the sinister manner of it. In addition, the loss of their water was a grave annoyance, as it meant that they could not now proceed to Martinique without first putting in somewhere along the coast at a place where the casks could be refilled.
Lucette and Bloggs agreed that the most likely suspects were the three pirates and two Porto Ricans who had refrained from voting on the question of making off with the Circe as opposed to continuing under the Vicomte. Since the voyage to Martinique was quite a different issue it was possible that others of the pirates were at the bottom of this attempt to keep the ship in the waters that they knew, but as a precaution it was decided to seize the-five suspects and confine them in the lock-up.
When they came to the question of watering, Bloggs had to rely on Lucette's knowledge of the locality, and she advised that they should make for the island of Tortuga. That meant putting the ship about again, as this small island lay off the north coast of Saint-Domingue. But the wind being against them they had not travelled any great distance during the past thirty-six hours, and with it in their favour could hope to reach Tortuga in considerably less.
With some misgiving Roger pointed out that if they put about they might run into the Vicomte; but Lucette said that by now he must be well on his way to his lair, which was far up a creek in the desolate coast of Great Inagua, a hundred miles north of the channel that separated Saint-Domingue from Cuba, and still ignorant of the fact that they were not following him to it. She men supported her argument for going to Tortuga by adding that, whereas they might waste days lying in half a dozen anchorages along the coast they were passing without being able to locate a fresh-water spring, she knew of three bays in Tortuga at any one of which they could refill the casks as soon as they were landed.
In consequence, the five protesting suspects were rounded up and the ship put about without further delay. All that day, on a fair breeze that was a most welcome offset to the broiling sunshine, they again sailed westward along the coast of Santo Domingo. When dinner-time came round Bloggs and Lucette reported that despite their close questioning of the crew, they were no nearer discovering who had killed Pedro, and their investigation made them more inclined than ever to believe that the murderer was one of the men who was now under lock and key. This belief gave them good grounds to hope that there would be no further trouble; so, after an evening spent on deck under a myriad of stars, they turned in with minds that were reasonably tranquil.
Yet next day the passengers woke to find themselves in a situation which filled them with the gravest alarm. The galley was silent, the hunch-back nowhere to be seen. The table in the saloon had not been laid for breakfast, and both the doors leading from the after cabins to the deck were locked. They were prisoners again, and in vain they both beat upon the doors and tried to force them. No one answered their knocking and it soon became evident that the doors were being held to by heavy objects on their far sides.
The mystery of what had occurred during the night deepened when they went to Georgina's old cabin, which since the ship's capture had been occupied by Lucette and Bloggs. That, too, was locked, and apparently empty as no reply came to their snouts and knocking on its door.
It looked as if the unrest among the crew had been much more grave and general than they had supposed; and there was cause for fearing that in a new mutiny both Bloggs and Lucette had been murdered. Roger now roundly cursed himself for his over-cleverness in arguing them into agreeing to make the long voyage down to Martinique. Had he scrawled pardons and a commission for them on pieces of paper they would have accepted them readily enough, and put him and his party ashore two days ago. But it was too late to think of that now, and they could only wait events.