Trade Wind (13 page)

“You think so? But they are not there as missionaries. They are there for profit. And in pursuit of that noble aim they intrigue against each other with Machiavellian zeal and viciousness, while at the same time uniting to describe the natives as backward and immoral savages. Old Sultan Saïd didn’t know what he was letting himself in for when he started signing treaties with European nations!”

Hero’s reading had not included much information on die score of Europeans in the Sultan’s territory or the reasons for their presence there, but remembering what young Jules Dubail had told her, she said on impulse: “I understand that the present Sultan, Majid-bin—er—something, is not the eldest son?”

“Majid-bin-Saïd? No. But he’s the eldest surviving son of those who were born in Zanzibar. And he won’t survive much longer if he doesn’t wake up and start cutting a few of his relatives’ throats in the near future! Which I’m afraid he won’t do, because he’s an amiable and easy-going creature—more’s the pity.”

Hero frowned and remarked with considerable acerbity that she wished he would stop saying things that he could not possibly mean.

“But I do mean it. Life is a great deal harsher in the East than you would seem to imagine, and those who want to keep their thrones have to kill or be killed. The history of Majid’s family is one long murder; and to be easy-going and incapable of knifing a rival is a great disability in Arab eyes, let me tell you! According to their reckoning, if you haven’t enough spirit to kill a man who stands in the way of something you want, then you don’t deserve to get it. They didn’t call old Sultan Saïd the ‘Lion of Oman’ for nothing.”

He laughed at Hero’s disapproving face, and said: “Do you know, you look exactly like a governess. Or a parson about to preach a sermon on Hell Fire. I’m afraid Eastern ideas are likely to come as a shock to you.”

“It is not
Eastern
ideas that shock me,” said Hero with emphasis. “I am naturally aware that untutored heathens are bound to hold different views from us on the subject of morality. But I cannot say the same when such views are apparently endorsed by white men.”

“Men are much the same, you know, whatever the colour of their skins. There may be more excuse for the behaviour of ‘untutored heathens,’ but that’s the best you can say about it The new Sultan is not a bad little man in many ways, and personally, I like him. But he’s weak, and that spells trouble: specially when your silly little cousin and her friends start mixing themselves up in palace politics.”

“What do you mean? What can you possibly know about my cousin or her friends?” demanded Hero, outraged.

“Only what everyone else knows. It’s a small island, and you’ll soon find that everyone there knows everyone else’s business. Your uncle is an easy-going man, but he ought to wake up to the fact that his daughter is dabbling her pretty little fingers in a keg of gunpowder.”

“I cannot help thinking,” remarked Hero in a deliberately dulcet tone, “that my uncle, as Consul, must know a great deal more about the internal affairs of the Island than you imagine. And though I do not suppose that he could teach you anything about slave trading—and whatever else you do—I feel sure that he knows quite as much about his business as you know about yours.”

“I doubt it,” said the Captain, unabashed. “I’ve drifted around this part of the world for a good many years now, and I’ve precious few illusions about it But your good uncle still cherishes a sight too many. Though I imagine even he must have lost one or two during the last year!”

“Are you personally acquainted with my uncle?” enquired Hero.

“My dear Miss Hollis—what a question! To be plain with you, he is going to be far from pleased at having his beloved niece restored to him by an untouchable like myself, because it’ll mean that he might even have to consider nodding to me in the street by way of thanks.”

“My uncle,” said Hero in an arctic voice, “will never permit his personal opinions to affect either his gratitude or his manners. He will naturally be greatly indebted to you for your part in rescuing me, and I am sure you will be suitably thanked and rewarded.”

“In cash?” enquired the Captain, amused. “I wonder what he’ll think you’re worth? Or are you imagining that he would go so far as to be seen calling at my house in order to express his gratitude in person?”

“That would be the least he could do,” said Hero with emphasis.

“My poor innocent! He wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. And neither will he permit you to do so. I shall be lucky if I get so much as a verbal message of thanks, and even that is going to stick in his gullet like a fishbone.”

“Nonsense,” said Hero tartly. “He might not wish to call upon you—which you will allow me to say is a thing I can fully understand—but you can take my word for it that he will. Not only from gratitude, but from mere courtesy. And if he could not get there himself, he’d send Clayton—er—Mr Mayo, or even myself, to do so in his stead. We are not barbarians.”

“Poor Miss Hollis! So you really think that your relatives would permit you to call at my house even on such an errand, do you? If I know anything about your uncle he’d see me jailed first—and to hell with courtesy and gratitude! Of course, you can always try your hand at getting him to put his gratitude in writing, though I doubt if you’ll succeed. It might come in quite handy as a testimonial; and with the world getting so damned moral I may even find myself having to earn an honest living one of these days.”

“I shouldn’t think that you would know how to,” snapped Hero, unable to resist the retort.

“Possibly not.” He grinned at her and enquired unexpectedly if she were possessed of independent means, or had she to rely upon her relatives to support her?

“Because,” explained the Captain kindly, “the only thing I can think of that might sweeten the prospect of taking on a homely-looking wife with a critical disposition, a quick temper and an acid tongue, would be a large private fortune. So I hope for Mr Mayo’s sake that you have one. That is, if there is any truth in the Island rumour that you are on your way out to this outlandish spot to marry him, which I begin to doubt.”

Hero opened her mouth to retort in kind and then closed it. It had obviously been a grave mistake to engage Captain Frost in conversation, since it had merely encouraged him to be impertinent. And there being no possible reply that a lady could make to such insufferable observations, she could only turn her back on him and feign an interest in the activities of Mr Potter and Hadir until he left. She heard him laugh and walk away, but did not turn her head; continuing to stare woodenly at Mr Potter who was crooning a tuneless ditty about someone called “me bonnie brown Bess’, and staining his sail an unpleasing shade of brown with the aid of a mop and a bucketful of evil-smelling dye.

Batty’s proceedings seemed, in Hero’s jaundiced view, both messy and useless, and she was about to say as much when it occurred to her that the expanse of wet canvas sealed off the hatch more efficiently—and a great deal less obviously—than any number of bolts; and that as long as it remained there it was going to be impossible for her to discover what lay below it in the hold. Which was a disturbing thought: but not so disturbing as the two that followed close on its heels.

That strong-smelling dye—Could it be being used to disguise another smell?…the stench of shuddering, sweating, unwashed captives, jammed together in the airless dark? And was Batty Potter’s tuneless humming as innocent as it appeared, or was he doing it deliberately, to drown any untoward sounds from below?

She said breathlessly, aware that her voice was not quite steady: “Why are you doing that, Mr Potter?”

Batty looked up, blinking in the harsh sunlight: “Eh? Oh, paintin’ this ‘ere sail d’you mean? Well it’s gettin’ old, and this ‘ere muck sorter keeps it from rottin’. Preserves it, as-yer-might-say. We does it sometimes on our spare canvas. Never know when we might need an extra sail or two. Don’t let it get on your ‘ands, miss…‘
so I plugs ‘im through ‘is gizzard with me bonnie Brown Bess
…”

Hero abandoned the indirect approach and said flatly: “Are there negroes down there in the hold, Mr Potter?”

“Not at this time of day, miss. They’ll be cooking their prog forrard about now. “Cept for young M’bula, ‘oo’s scrubbing out the scuppers.”

“You know quite well that I was not referring to the crew. I mean slaves. Are there any slaves down there?”

“Now, what ever give you that idea?” wondered Batty, his brown bewhiskered face a picture of innocent reproof. “Why, ‘aven’t you ‘eard that black-birdin’ is illegal outside of ‘Is ‘Ighness the Sultan’s own territories? Slaves! Whatever next? Not that the old ‘arridan ‘asn’t carried ‘er wack of black ivory in ‘er day, but that’s all over now. We gone ‘onest, we ‘ave.”

“Then what is it that you are carrying?”

“Cargo, missie. Just cargo.”

“What sort of cargo?” persisted Hero.

“A little of this and a little of that. Ivory—the white kind—and rhino ‘oms and some bits and bobs; clockwork toys and the like wot the Sultan fancies, and a sophy and a set of chairs for ‘is Palace. Nothing that would interest you, miss. And anyways, they’re all done up in packing cases so there ain’t nothin’ to see. So now, if you’ll excuse me, miss, I shall ‘av to be getting on with me work…‘
And that’s the end of ‘im, as any cove’ll guess, for she ain’t a one t’miss, is me bonnie Brown Bess!
’”

The canvas had remained there all day, and on the following morning another had replaced it and been similarly treated. The schooner reeked with the smell of Batty’s dye, and although Hero had been unable to detect any suspicious noises, she was still convinced that his reason for staining those sails had nothing whatever to do with preserving them.

In which she was right. Though the reason was not what she had supposed.

7

It was her last night on board the ViragOy and once again, but this time quite openly, she had been locked into her cabin.

“Captain’s orders,” said Batty, in answer to Hero’s heated demand for explanations. And added reprovingly that “them that didn’t ask questions wouldn’t be told no lies,” and that she should stop worrying and get her beauty sleep, because they expected to fetch Zanzibar by morning.

They had evidently “fetched’ something a good deal earlier than that, for lying awake in the hot darkness Hero heard the rattle of the anchor chain and a sound that she had heard before, and recognized: a boat was being lowered and rowed away. But this time the
Virago
must be close to land, because she could also hear the murmur of surf breaking on a shelving beach.

Once again, as on that other night, both portholes had been blocked, and the little cabin was pitch dark and insufferably hot. But although the thick curtains of coir matting effectively prevented the entry of either light or air, they seemed powerless to keep out the hordes of mosquitoes whose shrill, droning song was maddeningly audible above the coming and going of men on deck, the sound of surf and the splash of retreating oars. Hero slapped futilely at them, and eventually crawled out of her berth, and having found the matches, lit a tallow candle and splashed water over her face and down Captain Frost’s shirt that was still doing duty as a nightgown.

Thus cooled, her energy and her curiosity revived, and she remembered the shears with which Batty had chopped off her hair, and which she had seen him put away in a drawer of the desk. They were still there; large and heavy and surprisingly sharp. Hero looked thoughtfully at them, and then at the thick matting that screened the portholes.

Ten minutes later, after a hard struggle, she had succeeded in cutting a ragged slit in the matting and was peering cautiously through it, having first taken the precaution of blowing out the candle. They were riding at anchor near a dark shore that seemed to be thickly wooded, and Hero could make out the white line of surf on a little curving bay, and the ragged shapes of tall coral rocks that formed a natural breakwater on either side of it.

The breeze that blew gently off the land and cooled her hot face smelled deliciously of cloves—a strange, heady fragrance to find on the warm night air. There were other scents too; scents that were less familiar and that she could not place, since she had never known flowers that smelt as strong or as sweet. The odour of salt water and wet sand mingled pleasantly with them, and to the right and left of the bay she could see the tall, graceful heads of innumerable palms, swaying to the night breeze.

The moon had not yet risen but the sky was ablaze with stars, and as Hero’s eyes became accustomed to the uncertain light she saw that there was a house standing among the trees above the bay. A tall, white, flat-roofed house, protected from seaward by what appeared to be a massive, crenellated wall. It was clearly visible in the bright starlight, but either the occupants were asleep or else it was closed and empty, for no gleam of light showed from any window or from among the massed trees or on the surrounding wall. There were, however, men on the curving beach beyond the phosphorescent surf; half-a-dozen dark figures that were barely discernible against the pale expanse of sand, and who seemed to be engaged in either loading or unloading a boat that had been pulled up on the beach. After a time they thrust it off again, and Hero watched it being rowed back to the ship, and when it had passed out of her line of vision heard it bump alongside, fended off by hands and oars.

It was only then that she became aware that there could be no lights on the
Virago
and that even the riding light had been extinguished, for the water below her reflected only stars and shadows. The schooner must have crept in close to the land in the dark hour before moonrise, with every light extinguished and (why had she not thought of that before?) using the sails that Batty Potter had carefully darkened with a pail of brown dye so that they would be difficult to discern by night and the uncertain starlight, either against the dark sea or the darker land.

The voices and footsteps began again, accompanied by thuds and dragging sounds, and ten minutes later the boat came into view once more, pulling for the shore and riding low in the water as though it was heavily laden. They were not taking on cargo this time, but landing it. And whatever it was, it was certainly not slaves; though Hero had little doubt that it was the same cargo that had been transferred to the
Virago
in mid-ocean two nights ago.