From the light of his flickering lantern I could see that it was a small kitchen complete with cabinets, wood stove, even a table and a little stool. The space, though small, had considerable neatness, with utensils set in special niches and corners. Knives placed just so. An equal number of spoons and forks. Tumblers, pots, cups, pans. All that was needed.
The old man went right to the stove where a teapot was already on, hot enough to be issuing steam.
He pulled a cup from a niche, filled it with fragrant tea, and offered it. At the same time he gestured me to the stool.
Nothing, however, could have compelled me to enter further. Though stiff and weary I preferred to stand where I was. Even so, I tasted the tea and was much comforted.
As I drank Zachariah looked at me. “It may well be,” he said softly, “that Miss Doyle will have use for a friend.”
Finding the suggestion—from him—unpleasant, I chose to ignore it.
“I can assure you,” he said with a slight smile, “Zachariah can be a fine friend.”
“And I can assure you,” I returned, “that the captain will have made arrangements for my social needs.”
“Ah, but you and I have much in common.”
“I don’t think so.”
“But we do. Miss Doyle is so young! I am so old! Surely there is something similar in that. And you, the sole girl, and I, the one black, are special on this ship. In short, we begin with two things in common, enough to begin a friendship.”
I looked elsewhere. “I don’t need a friend,” I said.
“One always needs a final friend.”
“Final friend?”
“Someone to sew the hammock,” he returned.
“I do not understand you.”
“When a sailor dies on voyage, miss, he goes to his resting place in the sea with his hammock sewn about him by a friend.”
I swallowed my tea hastily, handed the cup back, and made a move to go.
“Miss Doyle, please,” he said softly, taking the cup but holding me with his eyes, “I have something else to offer.”
“No more tea, thank you.”
“No, miss. It is this.” He held out a knife.
With a scream I jumped back.
“No, no! Miss Doyle. Don’t misunderstand! I only wish to give you the knife as protection—in case you need it.” He placed a wooden sheath on the blade and held it out.
The knife was, as I came to understand, what’s called a dirk, a small daggerlike blade hardly more than six inches in length from its white scrimshaw handle, where a star design was cut, to its needle-sharp point. Horrified, I was capable only of shaking my head.
“Miss Doyle doesn’t know what might happen,” he urged, as though suggesting it might rain on a picnic and he was offering head covering.
“I know nothing about knives,” I whispered.
“A ship sails with any wind she finds,” he whispered. “Take it, miss. Place it where it may be reached.”
So saying, he took my hand and closed my fingers over the dirk. Cringing, I kept it.
“Yes,” he said with a smile, patting my fingers. “Now Miss Doyle may return to her cabin. Do you know the way?”
“I’m not certain ...”
“I will guide you.”
He left me at my door. Once inside I hurriedly stowed the dirk under the thin mattress (resolving never to look at it again) and somehow struggled into my bed. There, fully dressed, I sought rest, fitfully dozing only to be awakened by a banging sound: my cabin door swinging back and forth—rusty hinges rasping—with the gentle sway of the ship.
Then I heard, “The only one I could get to come, sir, is the Doyle girl. And with them looking on, I had to put on a bit of a show about wanting to keep her off.”
“Quite all right, Mr. Keetch. If there has to be only one, she’s the trump. With her as witness, they’ll not dare to move. I’m well satisfied.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The voices trailed away.
For a while I tried to grasp what I’d heard, but I gave it up as incomprehensible. Then, for what seemed for ever, I lay listening as the Seahawk, tossed by the cease less swell, heaved and groaned like a sleeper beset by evil dreams.
At last I slept—only to have the ship’s dreams become my own.
Chapter Three
I awoke the next morning in my narrow bed—fully clothed—and a stark truth came to me. I was where no proper young lady should be. I needed only to close my eyes again to hear my father use those very words.
But as I lay there, feeling the same tossing motion I’d felt when falling asleep—I took it to be that of a ship moored to the dock—I recollected Mr. Grummage saying that the Seahawk was due to leave by the morning’s first tide. It was not too late. I would ask to be put ashore, and in some fashion—I hardly cared how—I’d make my way back to the Barrington School. There, with Miss Weed, I would be safe. She would make the necessary decisions.
Having composed my mind I sat up with some energy only to strike my head upon the low ceiling. Chastened, I got myself to the cabin floor. Now I discovered that my legs had become so weak, so rubbery, I all but sank to my knees. Still, my desperation was such that nothing could stop me. Holding on to now one part of the wall, now another, I made my way out of the cabin into the dim, close steerage and up the steps to the waist of the ship, only to receive the shock of my life.
Everywhere I looked great canvas sails of gray, from mainsail to main royal, from flying jib to trysail, were bellied out. Beyond the sails stretched the sky itself, as blue as a baby’s bluest eyes, while the greenish sea, crowned with lacy caps of foaming white, rushed by with unrelenting speed. The Seahawk had gone to sea. We must have left Liverpool hours before!
As this realization took hold, the Seahawk, almost as if wishing to offer final proof, pitched and rolled. Nausea choked me. My head pounded.
Weaker than ever, I turned around in search of support. For a fleeting but horrible second I had the notion that I was alone on board. Then I realized that I was being watched with crude curiosity. Standing on the quarterdeck was a red-faced man whose slight stoop and powerful broad shoulders conspired to give the impression of perpetual suspicion, an effect heightened by dark, deep-set eyes partially obscured by craggy eyebrows.
“Sir . . .” I called weakly. “Where are we?”
“We’re coasting down the Irish Sea, Miss Doyle,” replied the man, his voice raspy.
“I . . . I . . . I shouldn’t be here,” I managed. But the man, seemingly indifferent to my words, only turned and with a slab of a hand reached for a bell set up at the head of the quarterdeck in a kind of gallows. He pulled the clapper three times.
Even as I tried to keep myself from sinking to the deck, nine men suddenly appeared in the ship’s waist, from above as well as below, fore as well as aft. All wore the distinctive sailor’s garb of canvas britches and shirts. A few had boots, while some had no shoes at all. One or two wore tar-covered hats, others caps of red cloth. Two had beards. One man had long hair and a ring in his left ear. Their faces were dark from sun and tar.
They were, in all, as sorry a group of men as I had ever seen: glum in expression, defeated in posture, with no character in any eye save sullenness. They were like men recruited from the doormat of Hell.
I did recognize the sailor who had given me the warning the night before. But he paid no attention to me. And when I looked for the man who called himself Zachariah, I finally found him peering out from beneath the forecastle deck, no more concerned with me than the others. They were all looking elsewhere. I shifted to follow their gaze.