A Falcon Flies Part 30

At last Robyn waded to the bank, and pulled her shirt and breeches over her still-wet body. In that heat, her clothes would dry upon her within minutes, and while she twisted her wet hair into a rope on top of her head she called to Juba to come out of the pool.

In a mischievous and rebellious mood the girl ignored her, and remained rapt in her own game, singing softly as she picked wild flowers from a creeper that hung over the pool and plaited them into a necklace over her shoulders. Robyn turned away and left her, climbing back along the bank towards the camp, and the first turn hid her from view.

Now Juba looked up and hesitated. She was not certain why she had refused to obey, and she felt a little chill of disquiet at being alone. She was not yet accustomed to this new mood of hers, this strange and formless excitement, this breathless expectancy for she knew not what. With a toss of her head she returned to her song and her play.

Standing above the bank, half screened by the trailing creeper and mottled like a leopard by the slanting dappled sunlight through the leaves of the forest, a tall figure leaned against the hole of a wild fig tree and watched the girl.

He had stood there, unseen and unmoving since he had been led to the pool by the sound of splashing and singing. He had watched the two women, comparing their nakedness, the bloodless white against the luscious dark skin, the skinny angular frame against sweet and abundant flesh, the small pointed b.r.e.a.s.t.s tipped in the obscene pink of raw meat against the full and perfect rounds with their raised bosses, dark and shiny as newwashed coal, the narrow hips of a boy against the proud wide basin which would cradle fine sons, the mean little b.u.t.tocks against the fullness and glossiness that was unmistakably woman.

Gandang was aware that by returning along the trail he was for the first time in his life neglecting his duty.

He should have been many hours" march away from this place, trotting at the head of his impi into the west, yet there was this madness in his blood, that he had not been able to deny. So he had halted his impi and returned alone along the Hyena Road. I am stealing the King's time, just as surely as Bopa stole his cattle, he told himself. "But it is only a small part of a single day, and after all the years I have given to my father, he would not grudge me that. " But Gandang knew that he would, favourite son or not, Mzilikazi had only one punishment for disobedience.

Gandang was risking his life to see the girl again, he was risking a traitor's death to speak a few words to a stranger, daughter of one who had himself died a traitor's death. How many men have dug their graves with their own umthondo, he mused, as he waited for the white woman to leave the pool, and when she had covered her skinny boy's body with those stiff and ugly garments and called to the lovely child in the pool to follow her, Gandang tried to reach out with his own will to hold Juba there.

The white woman, clearly piqued, turned and disappeared amongst the trees and Gandang relaxed slightly, giving himself once more to the pleasure of watching the girl in the water. The wild flowers were a pale yellow against her skin, and the waterdrops clung to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and shoulders like stars against the midnight sky. Juba was singing one of the children's songs that Gandang knew so well, and he found himself humnng the chorus under his breath.

Below him the girl waded to the bank and standing in the sugar-white sand began to wipe the water from her body; still singing she bent forward to wipe her legs, encircling them with long shin pink-lined fingers and running her hands slowly down from thigh to ankle. Her back was to Gandang, and as she stooped he gasped aloud at what was revealed to him, and instantly the girl flew erect and spun to face him. She was trembling like a roused fawn, her eyes huge and dark with fright. I see you, Juba, daughter of Tembu Tebe, he said, there was a husky catch to his voice as he came down the bank to her.

The expression in her eyes changed, they glowed with golden lights like sunshine in a bowl of honey. I am a messenger of the King, and I demand the right of the road, he said, and touched her shoulder. She shivered under his fingers. He saw the little goose b.u.mps rise upon her skin.

The "right of the road" was a custom from the south, from the old country beside the sea. It was the same right which Senzangakhona had demanded of Nandi, the sweet one', but Senzangakhona had not respected the law, and he had penetrated the forbidden veil. From this transgression one had been born, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d "Chakal, the worm in the belly', who had grown to become both the King and the scourge of Zululand, the same Chaka from whose tyranny Mzilikazi had flown with his tribe to the north. I am a loyal maiden of the King, Juba answered him shyly, "and I cannot refuse to comfort one who follows the road on the King's business! Then she smiled up at him. It was neither bold nor provocative, but so sweet, so trusting and filled with admiration, that Gandang felt his heart squeezed afresh.

He was gentle with her, very gentle and calm and patient, so that she found herself impatient to render the service he desired, found herself desiring it as strongly as he so evidently did. When he showed her how to make a nest for him between her crossed thighs, she responded instantly to his word and touch, and there was something wrong with her throat and her breathing, for she was unable to answer him aloud.

While she held him in this nest she felt herself gradually overwhelmed by a strange wildness of heart and body. She tried to alter the angle of her pelvis, she tried to unlock her tightly crossed thighs and spread them for him, she strove to engulf him for she could no longer bear that dry and tantalizing friction against the inside of her upper legs. She wanted to feel him breast the warm and welcoming flood that she sent down for him and she wanted to feel him gliding upon it deeply up inside her. But his resolve, his respect for custom and law, was as powerful as that muscular body that drove above her, and he held her captive until the moment when she felt his grip break and his seed spring strongly from him to waste itself in the white sand beneath them.

At that moment she felt such a sense of loss that she could have wept aloud.

Gandang held her still, his chest heaving and the sweat forming little shiny runners across that smooth dark back and down the corded neck. Juba clung to him with both arms wrapped tightly about him, her face pressed into the hollow between his shoulder and his neck, and for a long time neither of them spoke.

, YOU are as soft and as beautiful as the first night of the new moon, Gandang whispered at last. And you are as black and as strong as the bull of the Chawala festival, she instinctively chose the simile that would mean most to a Matabele, the bull as the symbol of wealth and virility and the Chawala bull the most perfect specimen of all the King's herds.

You will be only one of many wives, Robyn was horrified at the thought. Yes. " agreed Juba. "First of all of them, and the others will honour me. "I would have taken you with me to teach you many things and show you great wonders. "I have already seen the greatest wonder, You will do nothing but bear children."

Juba nodded happily. "If I am truly lucky, I will bear him a hundred sons. "I will miss you, I would never leave you, Nomusa, my mother, not for any person nor reason in the world, except this one. "He wants to give me cattle. "Since the death of my family, you are my mother, explained Juba, "and it is the marriage price. "I cannot accept payment, as though you were a slave."

Then you demean me. I am of Zanzi blood and he tells me that I am the most beautiful woman in Matabeleland. You should set the lobola as one hundred head of cattle."

So Robyn called the Induna to her. The marriage price is one hundred head of cattle, Robyn told him sternly.

You make a poor bargain, " Gandang answered loftily. She is worth many times that amount. "You will keep the cattle at your kraal, against my coming. You will tend them carefully and see that they multiply. "It will be as you say, amekazi, my mother. " And this time Robyn had to return his smile, for it was no longer mocking and his teeth were so white and he was, as Juba had said, truly beautiful. Look after her well, Gandang."

Robyn embraced the young woman and their tears mingled and smeared both their cheeks. Yet when she left Juba did not look back once, but trotted behind Gandang's tall erect figure carrying her rolled sleeping-mat balanced upon her head, and her b.u.t.tocks jiggled merrily under the short beaded ap.r.o.n.

Man and woman reached the saddle of the pa.s.s and disappeared abruptly from view.

The Hyena Road led Robyn and her little party into the mountains, into the mist and the strangely desolate valleys of heather and fantastically shaped grey stone. It led her to the slave stockades which Juba had described to her, the meeting-place where the white man and black man made their trade for human life, where the slaves exchanged their carved yokes for cuff and chains. But now the stockades were deserted, the thatch already sagging and falling in untidy clumps, only the sour smell of captivity lingered, and the swarming vermin that infected the empty buildings. In a futile gesture, Robyn put fire to the buildings.

From the misty mountains the road led on, down through dark gorges and at last to the low littoral where once more the heat clamped down upon them from a sullen overcast sky and the grotesque baobab trees lifted their twisted arthritic branches to it like crippled worshippers at a healing shrine.

The rains caught them here upon the coastal plain.

The flood swept three men away at a ford, four more, including one of the Hottentots, died of fever and Robyn herself was smitten with the first onslaught of the disease.

Shivering, half demented by the phantoms of malaria, she toiled on along the rapidly overgrown trail, slipping and stumbling in the mud, and cursing the fever miasma that rose from the br.i.m.m.i.n.g swamps and hung like a silver wraith in the sickly green glades of fever trees through which they hurried.

Fever and the rigours of the last stage of the journey had tired and weakened them all. They knew that they were, at the most, only a few days" march from the coast, deep into Portuguese territory and therefore under the protection of a Christian king and a government of civilized men. It was for these reasons that the Hottentot sentries slept beside the smouldering watch fire of damp wood, and it was there that they died, their throats slit with a blade sharp enough to cut off the least cry.

So Robyn woke to rough hands upon her, twisting her arms up between her shoulder blades and a bony knee in the small of her back, while steel cuffs clicked coldly about her wrists. Then the hands released her and she was wrenched cruelly to her feet, and dragged from the leaky hut beside the Hyena Road.

The previous evening she had been too tired and feverish to undress, so now she was still clad in a stained and rumpled flannel shirt and patched moleskin breeches.

She had even kept the cloth cap on her head, covering her hair, thus in the darkness her captors did not realize that she was a woman.

She was bound with her own porters and Hottentots, forced to wear the light marching chains which were proof, if proof was needed, as to who her captors were.

The dawn revealed them to be half-breeds and blacks, all of them dressed in the cast-off finery of European style, but carrying modern weapons.

These were the men she had crossed half a continent to meet, but now she cowered in the rags that were her only disguise. She shuddered to think on her fate if they should discover her s.e.x, and she berated herself for having so blithely believed that she and her entourage would be safe from these predators merely because she was white and English. Their prey was human flesh, of whatever colour and condition and that was all she was now, human flesh on the hoof. A chained creature, of little real value, a few dollars on the auction block, and she knew that her captors would think nothing of taking their pleasure upon her, or of leaving her beside the road with a ball through the temple if she provoked them in any way. She kept silent and obeyed instantly the least word or gesture from her captors. Slipping and dragging in the mud they were marched on eastwards, forced to carry their remaining stores and equipment which had now become slavers" booty.

They were closer to the coast than Robyn had calculated, they smelt the iodine and salt of the sea from afar, and later as night began to fall, they caught the smell of woodsmoke and the unmistakable odour of captive humanity. Then at last they saw the firelight flickering in the darkness ahead, and the awful loom of the barrac.o.o.ns.

Their captors marched between the dark stockades of pole and daubed mud, from which the chilling dirge rose of men without hope singing of a land they would never see again.

At last they came into the central square around which the barrac.o.o.ns were built. It was an open area of trampled mud where a raised platform of rough-sawn planks had been built. Its purpose was immediately clear, for the first of Robyn's servants was dragged up the steps and stood upon the platform, while the fires around the clearing were heaped with dry wood to light the scene. The platform was the auction block, and it seemed that the sale was to take place immediately.

The auctioneer was clearly of pure Portuguese stock, a little man with the wrinkled, sun-browned face of a vicious gnome. He had the bland smile and the unblinking eyes of a serpent. He was dressed in elegantly cut jacket and breeches, and his boots and belt were of the finest Iberian leather, ornately tooled and with solid silver buckles. He carried a pair of expensive pistols in his belt, and wore the wide-brimmed flat-crowned hat of a Portuguese gentleman upon his small wrinkled head.

Before climbing up on the block, he sent one of his personal slaves with a casual kick and cuff to the carved wooden drum at the edge of the clearing. On it the slave began pounding out a summons to the buyers. The slave went to it l.u.s.tily, his bare torso gleaming with sweat and raindrops in the firelight.

And in answer to the urgent staccato rhythm of the drum, men came from out of the shadows of the grove and from the living huts between the barrac.o.o.ns. Some of them had been drinking, they came arm in arm brandishing their rum bottles and bellowing in drunken chorus, others came singly and silently, but they came from every direction and gathered in a circle about the auction block.

The men who formed the circle seemed to be of every hue that the human skin is capable of a.s.suming, from le black through all the shades of brown and yellow purp to dead shark's belly white, and their features were African and Arabic, Asian and European. Even their dress differed widely, from the flowing robes of Arabia to the faded finery of embroidered jackets and high boots. They had only one thing in common, the hawk-fierce eyes and merciless mien of those who deal in human misery.

One at a time Robyn's servants were prodded up on to the block, and their ragged clothing was ripped away to expose their physique to the buyers. One of these might come forward to feel the muscle tone, or force open a slave's mouth to examine the teeth, like a gypsy horsedealer at the fair.

Then, when the buyers had satisfied themselves as to the quality of the wares on offer, the small Portuguese would step lightly to the front of the block and begin the bidding.

The men in the circle below him called him Alphonse and though they exchanged coa.r.s.e banter with him, yet they all treated him with wary respect, there could be no clearer proof of the man's reputation than fear and respect from these men.

Under his control the sale went swiftly. The Hottentots, small wiry men, b.u.t.ter yellow and with flat puglike features attracted little interest from the circle of buyers, knocked down for a few silver rupees apiece, while the porters, taller men and well muscled from many months of hard marching and porterage, fetched better prices, until they came to old Karanga, ancient and toothless, hobbling on to the block on storklike legs, seeming barely able to support the weight of his chains.

The laughter was derisive, and the little Portuguese pleaded in vain for a single bid before dismissing the old man with disgust. It was only when he was hauled down off the block and dragged away into the darkness beyond the fires that Robyn realized what was about to happen to him and, forgetting her resolve not to draw attention to herself, "No, let him go! " Hardly one of them glanced in her direction, and the man who held her chain hit her a careless open-handed blow across the side of her face that blinded her for a moment. She dropped to her knees in the mud, and through the buzzing in her ears beard the thud of a pistol shot from the darkness.

She began quietly to weep, and still weeping she was hoisted to her feet and in her turn dragged forward into the circle of firelight and hoisted by her chain on to the block. A young skinny one, said the Portuguese. "But white enough to make a choice b.u.m-boy for the harems of Omani, once he has had his knockers clipped. Who will give me ten rupees? "Let's have a look at him, " a voice shouted from the circle, and the Portuguese turned to Robyn, hooked a finger into the top b.u.t.ton of her flannel shirt and ripped it down to the level of her belt buckle.

She doubled over, trying to conceal her upper body, but the man behind her twisted the chain and forced her upright. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s pushed out pertly through the torn shirt, and the ring of watchers growled and moved restlessly, the mood changing instantly.

Alphonse touched the b.u.t.t of one of the pistols in his belt significantly, and the growl of comment died, the ring of men drew back a little.

Ten rupees? " Alphonse Pereira asked.

From across the circle a powerfully-built man swaggered into the firelight. Robyn recognized him instantly.

He wore a tall beaver hat tilted back on his head, and from under the brim curled thick shiny black hair. His teeth, when he opened his mouth, sparkled in the light of the flames. His face was flushed with excitement, his voice was thick with it. Gold, he shouted. "I'll bid gold, a gold mohur of the East India Company, and a plague on any of you that goes above thatA gold mohur, called Alphonse, the slave-master. "A gold mohur bid by my brother Camacho Pereira, and good luck to him, he chuckled. "Come now, who wants to deny my brother Camacho a fair tup at the wench? " One of his men slapped Camacho's back. Sweet Christ, you always were a hot one, at that price you can have my turn on top of her."

And Camacho laughed delightedly and came to the front of the block to stare up at Robyn, tipping the beaver hat forward he whispered, I've had to wait a long time-Robyn felt the little insects of loathing crawling over her skin, and she backed away to the limit of her chain. Come now, Alphonse called. "Who will go beyond a gold mohur for a fine piece-'She's mine, Camacho told his brother.

"Strike the bargain."

His brother lifted his hand to knock down the sale, when another voice stopped him. A double eagle, sir. Twenty golden dollars American bid. " The voice was not raised, yet it carried clearly to every man there, as it could carry from quarterdeck to maintop in a force eight gale.

Robyn started, and swung her chains disbelievingly in that direction; she would have known that lazy drawling inflectionif she had not heard it for a lifetime. He stood at the very edge of the firelight, but as every head in the circle turned to him, he stepped forward.

The smile had frozen on Alphonse's face, and he hesitated. Call the bid! " The advancing figure in plain white shirt and dark breeches made the men about him seem small and grubby, and after a moment's hesitation, Alphonse obeyed him. A double eagle bid, he said harshly. "Captain Mungo, St. John of the clipper Huron bids a double golden eagle."

Robyn felt her legs start to sag under her with relief, but the men behind her jerked her upright by her chain.

Camacho Pereira had whirled to face the American, and to stare at him furiously. Mungo St. John answered him with a smile, indulgent and patronizing. Robyn had never seen him look more handsome and dangerous, his dark wavy hair catching the firelight, and the gaze of his yellow-flecked eyes level and unflinching in the face of Carnacho's fury. A thousand rupees, Carnacho, he said softly. "Can you match it? " Carnacho hesitated, and then turned back quickly to his own brother, his voice low and urgent.

Stake me? " he asked, and Alphonse laughed. I never lend money."

To a brother? " Camacho insisted. Especially not to a brother, Alphonse answered. "Let the wench go, you can buy a dozen better for fifty rupees each. "I must have her. " He whirled back to face Mungo St. John. "I must have her. It is a matter of honour. Do you understand? He took the beaver from his head, and spun it away. One of his men caught it, and Camacho ran both hands through his thick black locks, and then stretched his arms down at his sides, fleidng the fingers like a conjurer about to perform a sleight of hand. I will make one more bid, he said ominously. "I bid one mohur of gold, and ten inches of Toledo steel. " The knife seemed to appear in his hand from out of the air he lifted the point to the level of Mungo St. John's belt buckle. Walk away, Yankee, or I will take the woman and your gold double eagle."

The watchers growled, a low blood-thirsty sound, and swiftly rearranged themselves into a ring about the two men, jostling for a better view. One hundred rupees says Machito slits the Yankee's guts. "Done! And there was a rising hubbub as the wagers were called and accepted.

Mungo St. John had not stopped smiling, but now he held out his right hand without once taking his eyes off the Portuguese's face.

Out of the ranks of the watchers emerged a large, toadlike figure with a head as round and bald as a cannon ball. Tippoo moved with reptilian speed to Mungo St. John's right side. He placed a knife in the outstretched hand, and then unknotted the embroidered sash from his waist and handed that to his Captain. Mungo wrapped the sash around his left forearm, still smiling softly to himself.

He had not once looked up at Robyn, though she had not been able to tear her own eyes from his face.

He seemed G.o.dlike to her at that moment, everything about him, the darkly cla.s.sical features, the wide shoulders under the white cloth of his shirt, the narrow waist clinched with a broad belt of polished leather, the strong straight legs in tightly fitted breeches and soil leather boots, seemed to have come down directly from Olympus. She would have gladly thrown herself at his feet and worshipped him.

just below Robyn, Camacho was stripping off his own jacket and wrapping his guard arm with it. Then with the long knife in his right hand he made a low swift cut, forehand and then backhand, so the steel whispered as it dissolved into a silver blur like the wing of a dragonfly in flight. At each stroke he ducked his head slightly and flexed his knees, loosening and warming his muscles like an athlete before the contest.

Then he moved forward, stepping lightly in the treacherous mud and weaving the point of the knife to distract and intimidate his adversary.

The smile went from Mungo St. John's lips, to be replaced by a grave and attentive expression, like a mathematician considering a complex problem. He kept his own knife low, advancing his wrapped forearm, and balancing easily, stood his full height and turned gently to face the Portuguese as he circled. It reminded Robyn of the night she had watched him on the dance floor at Admiralty House, so tall and graceful, so balanced and controlled in each movement.

Now at last the watchers were silent, straining eagerly for the first glimpse of blood, but when Carnacho charged they roared the way the crowd roars when the bull first bursts into the ring. Mungo St. John barely seemed to move, swaying his body at the hips so the knife slid past him, and then he was facing Camacho again.

Twice more the Portuguese attacked, and both times Mungo St. John moved effortlessly aside, but each time he gave a little ground, until he was backed up to the first rank of watchers, they began to fall back to give the American room to fight, but Camacho saw his opportunity as Mungo, was crowded like a prize-fighter against the ropes and he swung back to attack. At the same moment, almost as though it had been rehea.r.s.ed, a booted foot shot out from the crowd.

n.o.body was sure whose foot it was, for the throng was closely packed and the light uncertain, but the kick to the back of Mungo St. John's heel almost brought him down sprawling in the mud, he lunged to catch his balance, but before he could do so, Camacho hit him with the long bright blade. Robyn screamed and Mungo St. John spun away from the sting of the steel with scarlet spreading wetly down his shirt-front like rich Burgundy wine spilled on a damask tablecloth, and his own knife flicked out of his hand and was lost in the red mud.

The crowd bellowed, and Camacho swarmed in eagerly, following the wounded man the way a good dog hunts a pheasant with a broken wing.

Mungo was forced to give him ground, falling back, clutching the wound, dodging and weaving, catching a forehand slash on his wrapped guard arm so the embroidered cloth split almost to the flesh beneath it.

Skilfully Camacho herded him towards the auction block, and when Mungo, felt the poles catch in the small of his back, he froze for a moment as he realized that he was trapped. Camacho drove in at him, going for the belly, his lips drawn back baring his perfect white teeth.

Mungo St. John caught the knife on his guard and then s.n.a.t.c.hed a grip on the wrist with his right hand. The two men stood chest to chest, their arms entwined like vines on a trellis, swaying slightly as they strained together, and the effort brought a fresh flood of bright blood from Mungo's wound, but slowly he forced Camacho's knife hand upwards, bending it at the elbow, until the point was no longer aimed at Mungo's belly but at the night sky above them.

Mungo shifted his feet, gathering himself and then his face darkened, his jaw clenched and his breath sobbed with effort. Slowly Camacho's wrist gave to the pressure, and his eyes widened as the point of his own knife reversed towards him.

Now he also was wedged against the side of the auction block and could not break away, and infinitely slowly but inexorably, the long blade moved towards his own chest. Both men stared down at it, their hands and arms interlocked, pitting their strength to hold each other, but the point touched Carrincho's chest, a drop of blood welled up at the tiny p.r.i.c.k.

On the block beside Robyn, Alphonse Pereira drew the pistol from his belt with a furtive movement, but before she could shout a warning there was a blur of movement and Tippoo the mate towered beside him, his own huge smooth-bore pistol pressed to the side of Alphonse's skull. The little Portuguese rolled his eyes sideways at Tippoo, and then hurriedly returned the weapon to his obyn could watch again with fascinated horror belt, and the contest at her feet.

Mungo St. John's face was congested with dark blood, every muscle in his shoulders and arms raised in knots under the thin shirt, his whole existence concentrated on the knife, and he slid his left foot back until it was anch.o.r.ed against the auction block, and then using it as a pivot hurled all his weight forward on to the knife, the final effort like the matador going over between the horns for the kill.

For a moment longer Camacho resisted him, and then the blade resumed its forward movement entering Camacho's chest as slowly as a python swallows a gazelle.

Camacho's mouth opened in a cawing burst of despair, and suddenly his fingers opened as all resistance and strength went out of them. His own blade with Mungo St. John's full weight behind it shot its length into his chest with such force that the cross piece of the hilt struck against his ribs with a sharp thump.

Mungo St. John released his grip and let him fall, face forward into the mud, while he himself caught at the edge of the auction block for support. Only then did he lift his chin to look up at Robyn. Your servant, ma'am, he murmured, and Tippoo rushed forward to catch him before he fell.

Huron's seamen all of them armed, formed a guard about them, and Tippoo led them holding aloft a bull'seye lantern which he shone into the shadows as they hurried down the path.

Mungo St. John was on his feet, but supported by Nathaniel, his bosun, and Robyn had bound up the wound roughly with a strip of linen torn from a seaman's shirt and had used the rest of the shirt to make a sling for Mungo's right arm.

Through a grove of mangroves they reached the bank of the creek on which the barrac.o.o.ns had been built and in the centre of the stream, her bare masts and yards silhouetted against the starry sky, lay the lovely clipper.

She had lanterns in her rigging and an alert anchor watch, for at Tippoo's first hail the whaler swung away from her side and was rowed swiftly to the bank where they stood.

Mungo climbed the ship's side unaided, but sank down with a grateful sigh on to his bunk in the stern cabin, the bunk that Robyn remembered so vividly.

She tried to force the memory from her mind, and keep her manner brisk and businesslike. They have taken my medical chest she said as she rinsed her hands in the porcelain basin at the head of the bunk. Tippoo. " Mungo looked up at his mate, and the bald, scarred head bobbed once and then Tippoo ducked out of the cabin. Mungo and Robyn were alone, and she tried to remain remote and professional as she made her first examination of the wound in good lantern light.

It was narrow, but very deep. She did not like the angle of the thrust, just below the collar bone but angled in towards the point of the shoulders. Can you move your fingers? " she asked. He lifted his hand towards her face and touched her cheek lightly. Yes, he said, as he stroked her. "Very easily."

Don't, she said weakly. You are sick, he said. "So thin and pale.

"It is nothing, lower your arm, please."

She was terribly conscious of her matted hair and filthy mud-stained clothing, of the yellow tinges of fever on her skin and the dark smudges of fatigue and terror under her eyes. Fever? " he asked quietly, and she nodded as she went on working on the wound. Strange, he murmured. "It makes you seem so young, so fragile, he paused, so lovely."

I forbid you to talk like that. " She felt fl.u.s.tered, uncertain of herself. I said I would not forget you, " he ignored the instruction, "and I did not. "If you don't stop, I will leave immediately. "When I saw your face tonight in the light of the fires I could not believe it was you, and at the same time i; was as though all our lives we had a rendezvous to keep here tonight. As though it had been destined from the moment of our births. "Please, she whispered, "please stop. "That's better, please is better. Now I will stop."

But he watched her face attentively as she worked. In the ship's medical chest which he kept in the locker below his bunk Robyn found most of what she needed.

He neither flinched nor grimaced as she laid the st.i.tches in the wound, but went on watching her. You must rest now, she said as she finished, and he lay back on the bunk. At last he looked tired and drained, and she felt a rush of grat.i.tude, of -pity, and of that other emotion which she had believed that she had long ago subdued. You saved me. " She dropped her eyes, no longer able to look at him and busied herself with repacking the ship's chest. "I will always be grateful for that, just as I will always hate you for what you are doing here."

What am I doing here? " he challenged her lightly. Buying slaves, " she accused. "Buying human lives, just as you bought me on the slaving block. "But for a much lower price, " he agreed as he closed his eyes. "At twenty dollars gold a head there is not much profit in it, I a.s.sure you."

She awoke in the small cabin, the same cabin in which she had sailed the length of the Atlantic Ocean and in the same narrow uncomfortable bunk.