Voyage of Plunder Read Free

After all, this was the Atlantic.
    Suddenly tired of my cabin, I sat up. My head reeled. I gritted my teeth and climbed out of my bunk, slipping on my breeches and a cotton shirt and vest. After hurriedly braiding myhair in a queue and then pulling on my stockings and silver-buckled shoes, I donned my cocked hat and staggered onto the upper deck. My eyes watered in the freshening breeze.
    The rising sun shattered the cloud-studded sky with rays of yellow and orange. Halfway between the sun and the horizon, sails floated like the wings of a bird in flight. Below, a dark hull aimed toward us like a dagger.
    “Look lively now, lads!” bellowed the captain through his speaking trumpet.
    Sailors ran around me, their bare feet slapping the deck. One burly man knocked into me, scarcely apologizing as he ran by. I suddenly felt awkward. Stupid. Only fourteen years of age, average height, with soft muscles and pale skin, no doubt reeking like a rat in a cellar. I was in their way, knowing nothing of what they were doing. Hundreds of hempen ropes snaked this way and that.
How in the devil do they know which one to pull?
    “Ready! Ready! Ease down the helm!”
    I spied my father on the quarterdeck. I began to make my way toward him but then hesitated, remembering his expression of hurt the day before.
But,
I told myself,
it was my duty as a good and faithful son to tell him of his bewitching. Now, perhaps, he will see Faith for what she is. He will return to Boston and get rid of her.
    With that thought, I squared my shoulders, climbed the com-panionway and joined my father at the rail. “What is it?” I hoped he would say we were turning around and going home.
    “You must be feeling better.”
    “I am,” I replied, realizing I
was
feeling better, even though the
Gray Pearl
now rolled heavily through the swells. “What is it?” I asked again.
    He handed me his spyglass.
    It took me a moment to find her. A solitary three-masted ship headed our way, yards straining to every stitch of canvas.
    “Could be nothing,” my father was saying, “but she changed course to intercept once she spotted us. I told the captain to alter course and keep our distance.”
    “Why?” I lowered the glass, noticing my father's hands as he gripped the rail. His knuckles were white, and it looked as if he might snap the rail in half.
    Then he was staring at me oddly. Sweat dotted his upper lip. “If anything happens, Daniel, promise me you'll look after Faith.”
    My knees felt weak. Something was not right, something my father was not telling me.
    “Promise me, Daniel,” he said again.
    How could I make such a promise? I despised Faith. But then again, how could I refuse? I loved my father. “I promise,” I said, pretending to mean it. I raised the glass and looked out to sea, feeling a sudden urge to apologize, to say I was sorry for calling Faith a witch. But I could not. I would not. Instead, I asked, “Are they pirates?”
    “Pray they are not, Daniel. For the love of God, pray they are not.”
    The other ship drew nearer throughout the day. My father told me that the wind favored her, and to go below and look after Faith, that they would soon be upon us, for better or for worse. I was angry to be sent below. I started to tell my father that I was a child no longer, but I remembered my promise and bit my tongue.
    When we had first boarded the ship in Boston, the captain had given his cabin to my father and Faith. (It was only right, seeing as my father owned the ship and was very important, besides.) Now Faith lay on the bed in the captain's cabin, her pregnancy as yet scarcely noticeable. Her skin looked green.While I stood in the doorway, she groaned, rolled over, and retched into a bucket.
    I slumped into a chair with a sigh. All of the excitement would be happening on deck while I played nursemaid. And I was feeling sick again. My father was right. Being belowdecks was bad for the head. Even worse was listening to someone else be