sounds of suffering men—groans, cries of delirium, the harsh cut of laughter.
Another skiff, larger than the Mate's and filled with at least eight young bucks of seafaring aspect, rowed around the Marguerite's bow and roared with delight at die sight of us. One—who must be their leader—held aloft a bottle in salute.
“Old Hawkins, ahoy there! Have you come to join the merriment? And brought a fishwife, too! Are you after selling your girl, Mate?”
“She's too dear for your purse, Martin Whitsun,” Hawkins retorted, “and well you know it”
“Aye, none but a fool would pay more than tuppence.” Whitsun busied himself with a bulky object clutched against his chest; another rocket, perhaps. He must have a store of them at his feet The two skiffs were drifting closer together; in a minute I should be discovered as anyone but Nell Rivers. I shrank behind the Mate's sturdy back.
“Oi, Nell,” shouted a buck through the gloom, “have ye tired of good English cock, then? Do you think to dance a jig for the Frenchies' pleasure? There's many a lad would die for the sight of your arse, love!” He grasped his trousers in a lewd gesture and commenced to lurch drunkenly in the skiff, so that it rocked and bobbled perilously in the waves.
“Mangy curs!” Jeb Hawkins swung upwards so suddenly that the pranksters were taken off guard. “I'll teach you to show respect to a lady!” The blade of his oar slapped hard against the drunken man's chest, and sent him careening overboard with a terrible cry. In falling, the man clutched at one of his mates—and the scuffle and tumble that then ensued caused Martin Whitsun to drop his rocket.
It had just been lit.
There was a horrified cry, “a welter of splashes and dark shapes leaping over the skiffs side, and I felt myself propelled backwards in Jeb Hawkins's boat by the violent pull of the man's remaining oar. And then, with a roar as calamitous as Judgement Day, the entire complement of Whitsun's rockets flared and shot skywards.
Boom! Boom! The light was searing, unlike anything I had ever witnessed, so that I covered my eyes with my hands and cried aloud in terror. Sparks and flaming pieces of Whitsun's ruined skiff rained down all about us. I was struck a glancing blow by one splinter, and crouched as low as possible in Hawkins's bow. Everywhere were heard the cries of Fire! Fire!-—and when I considered with surprise how singular it should be for the drunken bucks struggling about us to sound so vigorous an alarm, I glanced up at the Marguerite.
A burning spark, or several perhaps, had landed on the hulk's deck, where a coil of cable or a bundled hammock had caught ablaze. Perhaps one of the lanthorns had been knocked over by a flying splinter or struck by an errant rocket. Whatever the cause, flames were now licking merrily along the deck, lurid and frightening in the darkness. Where there had been no activity before, was suddenly a handful of flitting shapes—theMarguerite's skeleton crew, desperately working with sand and sacking to douse the greedy fire.
“Mr. Hawkins!” I cried. “What have we done?”
“That's not our doing, ma'am,” he shouted back. “That's God's judgement on the poor Marguerite!”
“But the prisoners—the men in chains below! What will become of them?”
The Bosun's Mate ignored me. He was bent over the side of his small craft, fishing intently for a floating oar. Heads bobbed everywhere in the expanse of water between ourselves and the Marguerite; Martin Whitsun's gang, I supposed, abruptly sobered by the shock of February water. One man appeared intent upon making for our boat. He thrust an arm awkwardly above the waves and cried out, then was submerged in swell. I hoped fervently that the rogues were more adept at the art of swimming than I should be myself, and clutched firmly at the gunwale of the skiff.
Hawkins rose up from the side with a triumphant cry, and stowed his prize in the oarlock.
“Mr. Hawkins!” I shouted fiercely as the man began to pull away from the burning prison ship, “you must go back!”
“I can do nothing from die water, ma'am. It's for the crew to save her now. The fire's not so great—I've seen worse in my time—but in the event they carry powder, we would not wish to be near. If the ship blows—”
I clutched at die stem of one oar and pulled heavily against my determined saviour. “There is a man held in that hulk who