Wild Bells to the Wild Sky Read Free Page B

anchored in the cove to escape the storm, was faintly illumined by a sun that still hid just beyond the horizon. The sea and sky to the west were dark and silent and seemed to converge mysteriously before the bow of the Arion . Her captain now charted a course toward the channel that offered safe passage out of the dangerous waters of the sunken coral reefs and hidden sand bars surrounding the Bahama Islands.
    “How can there be stars in the sky that we can’t see? And how can we count them if we can’t even see them? And what happens to the stars when the sun rises? Why do they disappear? Where do they go? Do they fall into the sea?” Lily demanded, her small brow knit with puzzlement as she stared up at her father, certain he would be able to answer her questions.
    Geoffrey Christian’s teeth gleamed whitely in his sun-darkened face as he grinned. “Ho! What devilment have ye got planned, my sweet Lily, with all of these questions to plague a man while he’s about his measuring” Would ye have us run aground, then, on some heathen shore?” he exploded with a laugh that rumbled across the deck like thunder.
    Lily’s squeal of pleased fright filled the air as her father swung her up and tossed her high above his head. He caught her tumbling figure easily against his chest as she fell back into the safety of his arms.
    “Well, fondling? Want to touch the stars?” he asked her with a gleam in his eye. “They’re fading fast.” He warned her as she giggled and hid her face against his shoulder.
    “Yes, Father! Please! Let me touch them, please!” Lily said quickly, raising her face to gaze longingly at the few sparkling jewels that beckoned still from a sky streaked with the first glowing light of dawn.
    “Wrap your arms around my neck and hold on tight, Lily Francisca. We’re going to climb high into the heaven,” Geoffrey Christian declared loudly, defiantly, before he placed a reassuring kiss against his daughter’s flushed cheek. “Just for luck, sweeting,” he added softly this time.
    “You do not need luck, Father,” Lily corrected him. “You have always said that a man makes his own. And its only a fool or a weakling who awaits for good fortune to come to him or sits idly by while his fate is sealed,” Lily solemnly repeated her father’s philosophy of life.
    “A mocking child, as I live!” Geoffrey Christian said with a hearty laugh that threatened to shake the very timber of this ship. “Do you never forget anything? I see I shall have to take great care in future, lest I look the pickle-herring should you repeat my most ribald comment as if quoting scripture. No, up we go!” he said, his laugh fading as he set his mind to the task.
    Sir Basil Whitelaw, a gentleman of unusual equanimity, which was why he was one of his queen’s most trusted advisers, had come up on deck and was carefully straightening the elegant lace edging the high ruff about his neck, when he glance upward past the tangle of rigging overhead. He was thinking that it most likely would be another uncommonly warm day as he took note of the incredible color of the sky. Never had he imagined such colors, even in his wildest dreams. To an Englishman, especially one whose memory of rain-heavy ray clouds hanging low over the barren hills of a winter landscape were to be cherished, these colors were not natural; a plum-colored sky slashed with the brightest scarlet, molten copper, and aquamarine, which when it faded under the full light of day would still be the brightest blue of his recollection, seemed incredibly barbarous. Even the waters of this sea they sailed were unusually clear and bright, and warm, compared with the somber, unfriendly seas surrounding England. Ah, England, he sighed, and not for the first time since leaving those mist-enshrouded shores.
    It was during most nostalgic part of Sir Basil’s melancholy reflections of home that a high-pitched giggle intruded along with a small velvet shoe that struck Sir