Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“Go on, Jules!”

“No!” Jules gasped, swallowing a mouthful of salt water. Wild, terrifying thoughts swirled through her head. She’d seen the whaler in the distance, watched it without a great deal of interest until she heard Kanola cry out. Then she’d seen the boat coming toward them.

She grasped Kanola’s arm, pulling her with all her strength. But it was no use. The sun was shadowed by the men and the boat.

“Come on, little girlies,” she heard a man’s gleeful voice call.

“Dive, Kanola!”

But Kanola was much heavier than Jules, her body no longer as lithe. Jules watched helplessly as one of the men grabbed Kanola by her long, loose black hair and dragged her over the side of the boat. Without another thought, Jules dove deep. She had to escape and get help. It was her only thought as she swam with strong strokes underwater. I must get help! When she could hold her breath no longer, she surfaced, only to see a swarthy grinning face directly in front of her, blocking her way to shore.

“That’s enough now, girlie,” Rodney said. He and another sailor grabbed for her, one of them clasping her upper arm.

Jules fought silently, but she was no match for the two men. Like Kanola, she was dragged over the side of the boat and dumped on the bottom.

“Would you just fill your eyes with this, Ned,” Rodney said. “Not a freckle on that pretty little face. The captain’ll be mighty pleased. Oh yes he will.”

Jameson Wilkes was pleased. He watched his sailors bundle the two girls up the ladder. He quickly dismissed the native girl, his eyes on the flame-haired wench. He couldn’t believe his luck. Even though her thick hair was straggling down about her face and down her back, he knew she was a beauty. She was tall, slender, straight-legged, and those marvelous breasts, heaving beneath the thin covering of her sarong. Like Rodney, he quickly saw that not one freckle marred her lovely white skin.

Jules was brought to a stumbling halt before a tall, very well-dressed man. He looked a bit like her father, she thought wildly, but his face was seamed and swarthy from years spent on a ship. Her father usually carried an umbrella to protect his face from the harsh sun.

“My dear,” Jameson Wilkes said, offering her a slight bow, “welcome aboard the Sea Shroud.”

“Who are you?” Jules blurted out. “Why have you brought us here?”

“My dear,” Jameson Wilkes said in his deep voice, “I have but one question for you first. Are you yet a virgin?”

Jules stared at him as if he’d spoken Greek.

“Ah,” Jameson said, his eyes glittering. “Come along now, and I’ll tell you all you wish to know.”

“Kanola,” Jules gasped. “She is my friend, she must—”

Jameson stopped in his tracks. Slowly he turned. “Her status isn’t in much doubt, but nonetheless, we will see.” He walked to Kanola, who stood straight and proud, and with one fast motion he ripped off her sarong. Kanola lunged toward him, her nails aimed at his face, but three sailors grabbed her.

“My dear,” Jameson called to Jules. “You see, it is as I expected. The marks on her belly. Childbirthing marks. She hasn’t your worth. And like most native women, she’s got too much flesh. No, unfortunately, she has no value. Come along, now.”

Jules screamed, her voice high and thin, but she didn’t have the strength of Jameson Wilkes and he dragged her forcibly toward the hatch. The dim companionway loomed below. She heard Kanola call her name, then heard her cries of terror.

“I suggest you think about thanking me for protecting you from my men,” Jameson Wilkes said. “Nor, my dear, do you want to look.”

But she did. She saw Kanola on her back on the deck, men holding her arms and legs, and the sailor who had captured them pulling at his trousers. She wasn’t stupid or ignorant. One couldn’t be, in a whaling town like Lahaina, even if one’s father was a minister. “No!” she yelled in fury, and her short fingernails streaked down Jameson Wilkes’s face. She escaped him for a moment and dashed back toward the deck.

She rushed like a demon toward the screaming Kanola, cursing with the few foul words she’d heard from drunk sailors in Lahaina. The man turned, and she saw his hairy belly and a huge rod of flesh jutting out from his abdomen.

Jameson Wilkes caught her, pulling her back against him. “You want to watch, my dear? I’m sorry to deny you such an education, but I must.” He forced her through the hatch down to the companionway.

He knew his men would ravish the native girl. He also knew that such a sight would probably terrify this lovely creature, and that he didn’t want.

“Kanola,” Jules gasped. “You must make them stop! Don’t let them hurt her.”

“I swear to you they won’t hurt her,” Jameson Wilkes said.

“She’s my friend,” she cried, still straining against him. “Make them stop!”

“Captain, she got away from us!” Jameson Wilkes didn’t acknowledge his man’s shout. He said to Juliana, “You see, your friend has escaped. Even now she’s swimming to shore.”

“She won’t make it!” Jules cried, straining hard against his punishing grip. “We’re too far from shore.”