Corsair Read Free

manacled and tethered. Everyone else in the hold was free to move about.
    While his fellow captives fed, Hector picked steadily at the knot in the rope that bound him to the ring bolt. It was some sort of complicated seaman’s knot but eventually he managed to work it loose. Holding the tether in a loop so it did not trip him, Hector moved across to talk to the villagers. He was feeling a little awkward. Though he had spent his summers among them, he did not know any of the older men very well. The difference in their backgrounds was too great; the son of a gentleman, however impoverished, had little in common with peasant labourers and fishermen. ‘Has anyone seen my sister Elizabeth?’ he asked, embarrassed to pose such a question when he knew that each one of the men must have his own immediate troubles. No one answered. He knelt beside the cooper, who had always seemed a sober and level-headed family man, and repeated his question. He noticed that the cooper had been crying. There were streaks where the tears had run down his face and mingled with blood that leaked from the gash in his chin. ‘What happened? Where’s my sister Elizabeth?’ he repeated. The cooper seemed not to understand his question, for he only mumbled: ‘God has made a second Taking. To Israel he promised a return from the captivity, yet we are twice punished and left in darkness.’
    The man was a devout churchgoer, Hector recalled. Like all of the tradesmen, the cooper was a Protestant and regularly worshipped in the village chapel. It was the poorer sort – the fishermen and the landless peasants – who were Catholic, and they crossed to the island each Sunday to attend Mass with the friars. Hector, with his Protestant father and his Catholic mother, had never given much thought to this arrangement. He had little or no interest in religion, and veered as easily between one faith and the other as switching languages when speaking to his parents. He dimly remembered people talking about ‘the Taking’, but usually in hushed tones and he had never enquired further, believing it to be none of his business.
    Deciding that he would have to take matters into his own hands if he was to find out what was happening, he rose to his feet and walked across to the ladder leading to the hatch. Climbing up, he started to beat rhythmically on the underside of the timber with his wrist fetters. Within moments he heard an angry shout and then the sound of running feet. Once again the hatch was opened, but only a crack, and for a brief instant he caught a glimpse of blue sky with white puffs of cloud before the end of a broad-bladed sword was thrust down to within a few inches of his face. He stood stock-still so as not to provoke the swordsman any further, then slowly tilted back his head so that he could look up and said carefully, first in English and then in Spanish, ‘Please can I speak with the captain?’ He was gazing past the blade and into the face of the same sailor who had brought the basket of bread. The sailor stared at him for a moment, then called out in a language Hector did not understand. Hector heard a murmured exchange and the hatch was opened wider and a second man, presumably a petty officer, was gesturing for him to climb up.
    Clumsy in his manacles and with his tether still looped in his hand, Hector scrambled out of the hatch. After the stuffy darkness of the hold the world was full of light and sunshine, and he breathed deeply, glad to fill his lungs with fresh sea air and feel the breeze against his skin. He was standing on the deck of a fair-sized vessel, and though he was no sailor he could appreciate that the ship was making rapid progress over a sea of such vibrant blue that it almost hurt his eyes. When the vessel heeled slightly to a puff of wind he lost his balance and, recovering, glanced over the ship’s side. There, a musket shot away, a second ship was running swiftly on a parallel course, keeping pace with them. From