On Stranger Tides Read Free Page A

challenge at them. Try to stop me now, he thought, though it may take me years. I know it’s true now. It can be done. Yes—even if I’d had to have a
dozen
Indians killed to learn it, a dozen
white
men, a dozen
friends
…it would still have been worth it.

BOOK ONE
    The seas and the weathers are what is;
your vessels adapt to them or sink.
    â€”Jack Shandy

CHAPTER ONE
    GRIPPING ONE of the taut vertical ropes and leaning far out over the rail, John Chandagnac waited a moment until the swell lifted the huge, creaking structure of the stern and the poop deck on which he stood, and then he flung the biscuit as hard as he could. It looked like quite a long throw at first, but as it dropped by quick degrees toward the water, and kept on falling instead of splashing in, he saw that he hadn’t really flung it very far out; but the gull had seen it, and came skimming in above the green water, and at the last moment, as if showing off, snatched it out of the air. The biscuit broke as the gull flapped back up to a comfortable altitude, but he seemed to have got a good beakful.
    Chandagnac had another biscuit in his coat pocket, but for a while he just watched the bird glide, absently admiring the way it seemed to need only the slightest hitch and flap now and then to maintain its position just above the
Vociferous Carmichael’s
starboard stern lamp, and he sniffed the elusive land smell that had been in the breeze since dawn. Captain Chaworth had said that they’d see Jamaica’s purple and green mountains by early afternoon, then round Morant Point before supper and dock in Kingston before dark; but while the unloading of the
Carmichael’
s cargo would mean the end of the worrying that had visibly slimmed the captain during this last week of the voyage, disembarking would be the beginning of Chandagnac’s task.
    And do remember too, he told himself coldly as he pulled the biscuit out of his pocket, that both Chaworth and yourself are each at least half to blame for your own problems. He flung the thing harder this time, and the sea gull caught it without having to dip more than a couple of yards.
    When he turned back toward the little breakfast table that the captain let the passengers eat at when the morning’s ship-handling jobs were routine, he was surprised to see the young woman standing up, her brown eyes alight with interest.
    â€œDid he catch them?” she asked.
    â€œCertainly did,” said Chandagnac as he walked back toward the table. He wished now that he had shaved. “Shall I throw him yours too?”
    She pushed her chair away and surprised Chandagnac still further by saying, “I’ll throw it to him myself…if you’re sure
he
doesn’t object to maggots?”
    Chandagnac glanced at the gliding bird. “He hasn’t fled, at least.”
    With only the slightest tremor of hesitation she picked up the inhabited biscuit and strode to the rail. Chandagnac noticed that even her balance was better this morning. She drew back a little when she got to the rail and looked down, for the poop deck was a good dozen feet above the rushing sea. With her left hand she took hold of the rail and pulled at it, as if testing to see if it was loose. “Hate to fall in,” she said, a little nervously.
    Chandagnac stepped up next to her and gripped her left forearm. “Don’t worry,” he said. His heart was suddenly beating more strongly, and he was annoyed with himself for the response.
    She cocked her arm back and pitched the biscuit, and the white-and-gray bird obligingly dived for it, once again catching it before it hit the water. Her laugh, which Chandagnac heard now for the first time, was bright and cheerful. “I’ll wager hefollows every Jamaica-bound ship in, knowing the people aboard will be ready to throw the old provisions overboard.”
    Chandagnac nodded as they returned to the little table. “I’m not on a