There were satisfied nods and shouts of agreement.

Davies looked up at Chandagnac. "Join us, wholly adopt our goals as your own, or be killed right now where you stand."

Chandagnac turned to Beth Hurwood, but she was whispering to her father, who didn't even seem to be aware of her. Looking past the two of them he saw the broad figure of Leo Friend, who was scowling - possibly disappointed that Chandagnac was still alive. Chandagnac had never felt more friendless and unprotected. Suddenly, and terribly, he missed his father.

He turned back to Davies. "I'll join you."

Davies nodded thoughtfully. "That is the standard decision," he said. "I wasn't entirely sure it'd be yours."

Hanson stood up and stared dubiously at the bandage he'd belted to his chief. "That's all I can do for you, Phil," he said. "Get milord Hurwood to make sure it stops bleeding and don't mortify."

Chandagnac glanced at Hanson in surprise. Surely, he thought, you mean Leo Friend. Philosophy doesn't knit up wounds.

Hearing his name, Hurwood came out of his reverie and blinked around. "Where's Thatch?" he asked, too loudly. "He was supposed to be here."

"He's runnin' late this year," Davies said, not even bothering to try to twist his head around and face Hurwood. "Right now he's up in Charles Town getting the supplies you wanted. We'll meet him in Florida. Now come here and do something to make sure I don't die of this perforation."

Beth started to say something, but Hurwood waved her to silence. "He let you have the pointer?" he said, obviously not pleased.

Davies grimaced. "The mummied dog head? Sure. And it sure enough did start hissing and spinning around in its bucket of rum yesterday, and then at noon or so settled, staring hard southeast, and shifting only when we'd shift course, so we headed where it was looking." He shrugged as well as he could. "It led us to you, right enough, but it's sure a nasty-looking bit of trash. Had a time keeping the rats from chewing it up."

"Damn that lunatic Thatch," Hurwood exploded, "for letting common brigands carry sophisticated apparatus! If rats have touched that pointer, then they'll devour you entire, Davies, I promise you. You careless fool, how often do you think two-headed dogs are born? Send a man back to your vessel for it immediately.

Davies smiled and lay back on the deck. "Wellll," he said, "no. You can have the other half of your filthy pair back as soon as I've stepped ashore at New Providence Island, as healthy as I was an hour ago. If I don't recover totally between now and then, my lads will burn the goddamn thing. Am I right?"

"You said it, Phil!" shouted one of the pirates, and the others were all nodding happily.

Hurwood glared around, but crossed to where Davies was lying and knelt beside him. He looked at the bandage and lifted it and peered underneath. "Hell, you might very well recover even without my help," he said, "but just for the sake of my pointer set I'll make it certain." He began digging in the deep pockets of his knee-length coat.

Chandagnac looked to his left and behind him. Chaworth's body, clearly dead, shifted loosely back and forth in the sun as the ship rolled, and one outflung hand rocked back and forth, palm up and then palm down, in an oddly philosophical gesture. It comes and goes, the movement seemed to indicate; good and bad, life and death, joy and horror, and nothing should come as a surprise.

Chandagnac found it embarrassingly inappropriate, as if the dead man had been left with his pants down, and he wished somebody would move the hand to a more fitting position. He looked away.

Never having seen a wound worked on by a physician, which it seemed Hurwood was, Chandagnac stepped forward to watch; and for one bewildering moment he thought Hurwood was going to begin by tidying up Davies' appearance, for what he pulled out of his pocket looked like a small whisk broom.

"This ox-tail," said Hurwood in what must have been his auditorium-addressing voice, "has been treated to become a focus of the attention of the being you call Mate Care-For. If he was a grander thing he could pay attention to all of us at once, but as it is he can only thoroughly look after a couple of people at a time. In this recent scuffle he preserved myself and Mr. Friend, and since the danger to us is passed, I'll let you occupy his attention." He tucked the bristly object down the front of Davies' lime green shirt. "Let's see ... " Again he went fumbling through his pockets, "and here," he said, producing a little cloth bag of something, "is a drogue that makes the bowels behave properly. Again, you are in more danger in that regard than I am, at the moment - though I'll want it back." He took Davies' hat off and set it on the deck, laid the little bag on top of the pirate's head and then replaced the hat. "That's that," he said, standing up. "Let's waste no more time. Get the ones who are leaving into the boat, and then let's go."

The Carmichael's new owners swung the ship's boat out on the davit cranes and lowered it with a careless splash to the water on the starboard side, and they flung a net of shrouds and ratlines after it for the people to climb down on. At the next swell the boat was slammed up against the hull of the ship and took on a lot of water, but Davies tiredly called out some orders and the ship shifted ponderously around until the wind was on the starboard quarter and the rolling abated.

Davies got to his feet, wincing irritably. "All off that's getting off," he growled.

Wistfully Chandagnac watched the Carmichael's original crew shambling toward the starboard rail, several of them supporting wounded companions. Beth Hurwood, a black hood pulled over her coppery ringlets, started forward, then turned and called, "Father! Join me in the boat."

Hurwood looked up, and produced a laugh like the last clatter of unoiled machinery. "Wouldn't they be glad of my company! Half of these slain owe their present state to my pistol collection and my hand. No, my dear, I stay aboard this ship - and so do you."

His statement had rocked her, but she turned and started toward the rail.

"Stop her," snapped Hurwood impatiently.

Davies nodded, and several grinning pirates stepped in front of her.

Hurwood permitted himself another laugh, but it turned into a retching cough. "Let's go," he croaked. Chandagnac happened to glance at Leo Friend, and he was almost glad that he'd been forced to stay aboard, for the physician was blinking rapidly, and his prominent lips were wet, and his eyes were on Beth Hurwood.

"Right," said Davies. "Here, you clods, get these corpses over the side - mind you don't pitch 'em into the boat - and then let's be off." He looked upward. "How is it, Rich?"

"Can't jibe," came a shout from aloft, "with the spanker carried away. But this wind and sea are good enough to tack her in, I think, if we get all the lads up on the footropes."

"Good. Elliot, you take a couple of men and pilot the sloop back home."

Tags: Tim Powers Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net