Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗

There will come a time when you will weep to the Almighty and beg him for the easy death that I denied you this day. Take them away and put them to work immediately. The sight of them offends my eyes, and those of all honest men."

As they were herded from the hall, Katinka hissed with frustration and made a gesture of annoyance. Cumbrae leaned closer to her and asked, What is it that troubles you, madam?"

"I fear my husband has made a mistake. He should have sent them to the pyre on the parade." Now she would be denied the thrill of watching Slow John work on the beautiful brat, and listening to his screams. It would have been a deeply satisfying conclusion to the affair. Her husband had promised it to her, and he had cheated her of the pleasure. She would make him suffer for that, she decided.

"Ah, madam, revenge is best savoured like a pipe of good Virginia tobacco. Not gobbled up in a rush. Any time in the future that the fancy takes you, you need only look up at the castle walls and there they will be, being worked slowly to death."

Hal passed close by where Sir Francis sat on the long bench. His father looked forlorn and sick, with his hair and beard in lank ropes and black shadows beneath his eyes, in dreadful contrast with his pale skin. Hal could not bear it and suddenly he cried, "Father!" and would have run to him, but Sergeant Manseer had anticipated him and stepped in front of him with the long cane in his right hand. Hal backed away.

His father did not look up, and Hal realized that he had taken his farewell and had moved on into the far territory where only Slow John would be able now to reach him.

When the file of convicts had left the hall and the doors had closed behind them, a hush fell and every eye rested on the lonely figure on the bench.

"Francis Courtney," van de Velde said loudly. "Stand forth!"

Sir Francis threw back his head, flicking the greying hair out of his eyes. He shrugged off the guards" hands and rose unaided to his feet. He held his head high as he marched to the dais, and his torn shirt flapped around his naked back. The cane stripes had begun to dry into crusted black scabs.

"Francis Courtney, it is not by chance, I am certain, that you bear the same Christian name as that most notorious of all pirates, the rogue Francis Drake."

"I have the honour to be named for the famous seafarer," said Sir Francis softly.

"Then I have the even greater honour of passing sentence upon you.

I sentence you to death." Van de Velde waited for Sir Francis to show some emotion, but he stared back without expression. At last the Governor was forced to continue. "I repeat, your sentence is death, but the manner of your death will be of your own choosing." Abruptly and unexpectedly, he let out a mellow guffaw. "There are not many rogues of your calibre that are treated with such beneficence and condescension."

"With your permission, I shall withhold any expression of gratitude until I hear the rest of your proposal," Sir Francis murmured, and van de Velde stopped laughing.

"Not all the cargo from the Standvastigheid has been recovered. By far the most valuable portion is still missing, and there is no doubt in my mind that you were able to secrete this before you were captured by the troops of the honourable Company. Are you prepared to reveal the hiding place of the missing cargo to the officers of the Company? In that case, your execution will be by a swift and clean beheading."

"I have nothing to tell you," said Sir Francis, in a disinterested tone.

"Then, I fear, you will be asked the same question under extreme compulsion by the state executioner." Van de Velde smacked his lips softly, as though the words tasted good on his tongue. "Should you answer fully and without reservation the headsman's axe will put an end to your suffering. Should you remain obstinate, the questioning will continue. At all times the choice will remain yours."

"Your excellency is a paragon of mercy," Sir Francis bowed, "but I cannot answer the question, for I know nothing of the cargo of which you speak."

"Then Almighty God have mercy on your soul," said van de Velde, and turned to Sergeant Manseer. "Take the prisoner away and place him in the charge of the state executioner."

Hal balanced high on the scaffolding on the unfinished wall of the eastern bastion of the castle. This was only the second day of the labours that were to last the rest of his natural life, and already the palms of his hands and both his shoulders were rubbed raw by the ropes and the rough, undressed stone blocks. One of his fingertips was crushed and the nail was the colour of a purple grape. Each masonry block weighed a ton or more and had to be manhandled up the rickety scaffolding of bamboo poles and planks.

In the gang of convicts working with him were Big Daniel and Ned Tyler, neither of whom was fully recovered from his wounds. Their injuries were plain to see for all were dressed only in petticoats of ragged canvas.

The musket ball had left a deep, dark purple crater in Daniel's chest and a lion's claw across his back, where Hal had cut him. The scabs over these wounds had burst open with his exertions and were weeping watery blood-tinged lymph.

The sword wound crawled like a raw red vine around Ned's thigh, and he limped heavily as he moved along the scaffold. After their privations in the slave deck of the Gull they were all honed clean of the last ounce of fat. They were lean as hunting dogs, and stringy muscle and bone stood out clearly beneath their sun reddened skins.

Though the sun still shone brightly, the winter wind whistled in from the nor-"west and seemed to abrade their bodies like ground glass. In unison they hauled at the tail of the heavy manila rope and the sheaves screeched in their blocks as the great yellow lump of stone lifted from the truck of the wagon far below and began its perilous ascent up the high structure.

The previous day a scaffolding on the south bastion had collapsed under the weight of the stones and had hurled three of the convicts working upon it to their death on the cobbles far below. Hugo Barnard, the overseer, had muttered as he stood over their crushed corpses, "Three birds with one stone. I'll have the next careless bastard that kills himself thrashed within an inch of his life," and burst out laughing at his own gallows" humour.