Jay rasped, "A deserter, eh? Looks like the end o' th' roamin' life for you! "
The man cringed. "For Gawd's sake 'ave some pity. I'm just a poor Jack like yerselves! "
Sperry shook him gently. "An' soon you'll be a poor dead Jack, dancin' at the yardarm, you bastard! "
Segrave had never even tried to understand it. How men who had been taken by the press gangs as some of Miranda's had, were always outraged by those who had run.
The one who was obviously the master shrugged his shoulders and shook his head.
Jay sighed. "Don't speak no English." His eyes gleamed and he pointed at the deserter with his hanger.
"You'll do! You 'elp us an' we'll see you escapes the rope, eh?"
The sailor's gratitude was pathetic to see. He fell on his knees and sobbed, "I only done one passage in 'er, 'onest, sir! "
"Wot about the two 'burials'?" The point of the hanger lifted suddenly until it rested on the man's throat. "An' don't lie, or you'll be joinin' them! "
"The master put 'em over, sir! " He was babbling with fear and relief. "They'd been fighting, and one stabbed t'other." He dropped his eyes. "The master was goin' to get rid of ' em anyway. They weren't strong enough for 'ard work."
Segrave watched the man in the frilled shirt. He seemed calm, indifferent even. They could not hold him, although he had murdered two slaves who were no longer of any use.
Jay snapped, "Take charge of the deck, George." He beckoned to a seaman. "We'll go below." He added, "You too, Mr Segrave! "
It was even filthier between decks, the whole hull creaking and pitching while the sailors, holding lanterns like tin-miners, crept amongst the evidence of the schooner's trade. Ranks of manacles and leg-irons lined and crisscrossed the main hold, with chains to keep each batch of slaves from moving more than a few feet. And this for a voyage across an ocean, to the Indies or the Spanish Main.
Jay muttered, "That's why they only takes the fit ones. T'others would never last the passage." He spat. "Lyin' in their own filth for weeks on end. Don't bear thinkin' about." He shrugged. "Still, I suppose it's a livin', like everythin' else."
Segrave wanted to be sick, but he controlled it and asked timidly, "That deserter-will he really be pardoned?"
Jay paused and glanced at him. "Yes, if he's any use to us. Pardoned the rope anyway. He'll likely get two hundred strokes of the cat, just to remind him of 'is loyalties in the future! "
The young seaman named Dwyer said softly, "What's abaft this lot, Mr Jay?"
Jay forgot Segrave and turned swiftly. "Th' cabins. Why?"
"I heard something, or someone more like."
"God's teeth! " Jay drew his pistol and cocked it. "Might be some bastard with a slow-match ready to blow us all to hell! Use yer shoulder, Dwyer! "
The young seaman hurled himself against one of the doors and it burst open, smashed from its hinges by the blow.
The hutchlike cabin was in darkness but for a patch of sunshine which could barely penetrate the filthy glass of a skylight.
On a littered and stained bunk was a young black woman. She was sitting half-upright, propped on her elbows, her lower limbs covered by a soiled sheet. She was otherwise quite naked. There was no fear, not even surprise, but when she tried to move a chain around her ankle restricted her.
Jay said quietly, "Well, well. Does himself very nicely, does the master! "
He led the way on deck again and shaded his eyes in the glare as Miranda changed tack and drew closer to the drifting vessel, which was apparently named Albacora.
Tyacke's voice, unreal in a speaking-trumpet, reached them easily. "What is she?"
Jay cupped his hands, "Slaver, sir. No cargo but for one. We've a deserter on board as well."
Segrave saw the man bobbing and smiling wretchedly in the background as if Tyacke could see him. But he kept thinking of the black girl. Chained there like a wild animal for the slaver's pleasure. She had a lovely body, despite. Tyacke called over, "Where bound?"
Jay held up the chart. " Madagascar, sir."
A seaman near Segrave murmured, "We'll have to let 'er go." He glared around the filthy deck. "She hain't much but she'd fetch a few shillin's in the prize court! " His mate nodded in agreement.
Tyacke's voice betrayed no emotion. "Very well, Mr Jay. Return on board and bring the deserter with you."
The man in question shouted, "No! No! " The boatswain cuffed him around the ear and sent him sprawling, but he crawled across the deck and clawed at Jay's shoes like a crippled beggar.
He shouted again, "He took the chart below when you was sighted, sir! I seen him do it afore. He puts a different one for all to see."
Jay kicked his hands away. "Now, why didn't I think of that?" He touched Segrave's arm. "Come with me."
They returned to the cabin where the girl still lay propped on her elbows, as if she had not moved.
They searched through the litter of books and charts, discarded clothing and weapons, Jay becoming clumsier by the moment, well aware of Tyacke's impatience to get under way again.
Jay said desperately, "'S no use. I can't find it, an' that bugger don't speak English." He sounded angry. "I'll lay odds that the deserter is lyin' to save 'is own skin. He'll 'ave no skin left when I've done with 'im! "
There was a looking-glass leaning against a case of paired pistols. Jay picked it up and searched behind it as a last hope.
"Not a god-damned thing! " He tossed the glass on the table and Segrave snatched it as it slithered towards the deck. As he did so he caught the merest glimpse of the girl behind him, now turned slightly to watch, her breasts shining in the filtered sunlight.
He exclaimed, "She's lying on something, Mr Jay! "
Jay stared from him to her with stunned amazement. "By the livin' Jesus! " He sprang across the cabin and seized the girl's naked shoulder to push her across the bunk.
But her body, slippery with sweat, escaped his grasp, and she moved like lightning, a knife appearing in her left hand even as Segrave ran to Jay's assistance.
Jay went sprawling from the impetus of his charge across the cabin and as he pitched to the deck he saw Segrave fall over the girl, and heard his sharp cry of agony.
Segrave felt the blade like fire across his hip, somehow knew that she had raised the knife for another blow at his unprotected back.
There was a cracking sound and the knife went clattering to the deck. The girl lay back, her eyes closed, her mouth bleeding where Jay had punched her.
Another figure ran into the low cabin. It was the seaman named Dwyer.
Jay rasped, "'Ere, give Mr Segrave a hand! " He rolled the girl's body aside and tugged a worn leather pouch from beneath her.
Segrave groaned and tried to move. Then he saw the slash in his breeches where the knife had gone in. There was blood everywhere, and the pain was making him gasp, bite his lip to prevent himself from screaming.
The sailor wrapped what appeared to be a shirt around the wound, but it was soon soaked through with blood.
Jay ripped open the big pouch, his eyes speedily scanning the contents before he opened the chart with trembling fingers.
Then he stood up. "I must speak with the Cap'n." He looked at Segrave's contorted face. "You saved my rump, an' no mistake! " He watched his agony and added kindly, "Be easy till I come back."
On deck the sky already seemed darker, the clouds underbellied with deep gold.
In quick sentences Jay shouted his information across the choppy division of water. "She was bound for Cape Town! There's a despatch, wrote in French it looks."
Tyacke called, "How badly is Mr Segrave?" He saw Jay's shrug. "Then you had better not move him! Send the vessel's master across with the pouch-the deserter too. I will rejoin the squadron. Are you confident that you can manage?"
Jay grinned and said to himself, "Manage? They'll not make trouble now."
The Albacora's master protested violently as a seaman seized his arm.
Jay snarled, "Put those irons on him! Attempting to murder a King's officer, butchering slaves, to say nothing of trading with the enemy." He nodded, satisfied as the man fell silent. "Yes, my friend, you've understood the signal at last."