Empire of Ivory Page 0,48
not be your own nation."
"Beggars cannot be choosers, Captain," Erasmus said simply, "and I have only been praying for passage to Africa. If God has opened a path for me that leads to Capetown, I will not refuse it."
He made no further appeal, but only sat expectantly, his dark eyes leveled steadily across the table. "Then I am at your service, Reverend," Laurence said, as of course he had to, "if you can only manage to be ready in time; we cannot miss the tide."
"Thank you, Captain." Erasmus rose and shook his hand vigorously. "Have no fear: in hopes of your consent, my wife has already been making our arrangements, and by now will already herself be on the road with all our worldly substance; there is not much of it," he added.
"Then I will hope to see you tomorrow morning," Laurence said, "in Dover harbor."
The Allegiance stood waiting for them in the cold sunny morning, looking oddly squat with her masts stubby and bare, the topmasts and yards laid out upon the deck, and the enormous chains of her best bower and kedge anchors stretching out from the water, groaning softly as she rocked on the swell. She had come into harbor some four weeks earlier, Laurence and Temeraire having reached England, in the end, scarcely any sooner than their ocean passage would have brought them, if they had sailed home with the Allegiance after all.
"You may not complain of your delays; I am too happy to find you alive and well and not skeletons in some Himalayan pass," Riley said, shaking his hand eagerly in welcome, nearly before Laurence had stepped off Temeraire's back. "And you brought us home a fire-breather, after all. Yes, I could scarcely help but hear of her; the Navy is bursting with the news, and I believe the ships on blockade take it in turn to go past Guernsey and watch her flaming away at that old rock heap through their glasses.
"But I am very happy we shall make shipmates again now," he continued, "and though you will be more crowded, I hope we will make shift to see you all comfortable; you are a party of seven this time?"
He spoke with so much earnest friendliness and concern that Laurence was stricken with a sense of dishonesty and said abruptly, "Yes, we are a full complement; and Captain, I must tell you, I have brought a passenger along, with his family. He is a missionary, bound for the Cape, and applied to me only yesterday afternoon - he is a freedman."
He regretted his words as soon as he had spoken; he had meant to make the introduction more gently, and was conscious that he had let guilt make him clumsy and indelicate. Riley was silent. "I am sorry I could not give you more warning," Laurence added, in an attempt to make apology.
"I see," Riley said only, " - of course you may invite anyone whom you wish," very shortly, and touching his hat went away without further conversation.
He made no pretense of courtesy to Reverend Erasmus when that gentleman came aboard a little later that morning, neglecting even a greeting, which would have offended Laurence on the part of any guest, much less a man of the cloth; but when he saw the minister's wife left sitting in the small and poky boat which had been sent for them, with her two small children, and no offer made to rig a bosun's chair over the side to bring them aboard, he had had enough.
"Ma'am," he said, leaning over the side, "pray be easy, and only keep hold of the children; we will have you aboard in a moment. I beg you will not be alarmed," and straightening said, "Temeraire, will you lift that boat up, if you please, so the lady may come aboard."
"Oh, certainly, and I will be very careful," Temeraire said, and leaning over the side of the ship - well-balanced, to her other side, by Maximus, still prodigious in weight despite his reduced state - he seized the boat carefully in one enormous forehand, and plucked it dripping from the water. The boat's crew were loud in their protestations of alarm, while the two little girls clung to their stoic-faced mother, who did not permit herself to look at all anxious; the entire operation scarcely covered the space of a moment, and then Temeraire was setting the boat upon the dragondeck.
Laurence offered his hand to Mrs. Erasmus: she silently