Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗
"We have not been introduced. Your servant, Henry Courtney." He grinned at her, and she laughed delightedly at his formal manner.
"Good morrow, Gundwane. I know you well. Aboli has warned me of what a fierce young pirate you are." Then she turned serious. "You are hurt. I should see to your leg."
"Tis nothing that cannot wait until later," he assured her.
"The bite of a dog will mortify swiftly if it is left untreated, she told him.
"Later!" he repeated, and turned to Aboli.
"Aboli, are you acquainted with the road to the boundary of the colony?"
"There is only one road, Gundwane. We have to go straight through the village, skirt the marshland then head out across the sandy flatlands towards the mountains." He pointed. "The bitter-almond fence is five miles beyond the marsh."
Looking beyond the settlement, Hal could already see marshland and the lagoon ahead, stands of reeds and open water, over which hovered flocks of water birds. He had heard that crocodiles and hippopotami lurked in the depths ofthelagoon.
"Althuda, will there be any soldiers in our way?" Hal asked him.
"There are usually guards at the first bridge and there is always a patrol at the bitter-almond hedge to shoot any Hottentots who try to enter," Althuda replied, without looking up from the musket he was loading.
Then Sukeena sang out, "There will be no pickets or patrols today.
From dawn I kept a watch on the crossroad. No soldiers went out to take up their posts. They are all too busy nursing their aching bellies." She laughed gaily, as excited and wrought up as the rest of them. Suddenly she leaped up in the body of the carriage and called out in a ringing voice, "Free! For the first time in my life I am free!" Her plait had tumbled down and come loose. Her hair streamed out behind her head. Her eyes sparkled, and she was so beautiful that she epitomized the dreams of every one of the ragged seamen.
Although they cheered her, "You, and us also, darling!" it was Hal at whom she was looking with those laughing eyes.
As they passed the buildings of the settlement, the warning cries had been shouted ahead of them. "Beware! The pirates have escaped. The pirates are on the rampage!" The good citizens of Good Hope scattered before them. Mothers rushed into the street to seize their offspring and drag them indoors, to throw the door-bolts and slam down the shutters.
"You are safe now. You have escaped clean away. Please will you not let me free, Sir Henry?" Katinka had recovered from her shock sufficiently to plead for her life. "I swear I have never meant you harm. I saved you from the gallows. I saved Althuda also. I'll do anything you say, Sir Henry. just please set me free," she whimpered, clinging to the side of the carriage.
"You may call me sir now and make me those declarations of goodwill but they would have stood my father in better stead while he was on his way to the gallows." Hal's expression was so cold and remorseless that Katinka recoiled and fell back in the seat beside Sukeena, sobbing as though her heart were breaking.
The seamen running with Hal shouted their scorn and hatred at her.
"You wanted to see us hanged, you painted doxy, and we're going to feed you to the lions out there in the wilderness," gloated Billy Rogers.
Katinka sobbed afresh and covered her face with her hands. "I never meant any of you harm. Please let me go." The carriage rolled steadily down the empty street, and the last few huts and hovels of the settlement were all that lay ahead when Althuda rose from his seat and pointed back down the gravel-surfaced road towards the distant parade. "Horseman coming at a gallop!" he cried.
"So soon?" Big Daniel muttered, shading his eyes. "I had not expected the Pursuit yet. Do they have cavalry to send after us?"
"Have no fear of that, lads, Aboli reassured them. "There are no more than twenty horses in the whole colony, and we have six of those."
"Aboli is right. "tis only one horseman!" shouted Wally Finch.
The rider was leaving a pale ribbon of dust in the air behind him, leaning forward over his mount's neck as he drove the animal to its top speed, using the whip in his right hand to flog it onwards mercilessly.
He was still far Off, but Hal recognized him from the sash that flowed out behind him with the speed of his gallop.
"Sweet Mary, it's Schreuder! I knew he would join us before too long." His jaw clenched in anticipation. "The hot-headed idiot comes alone to fight us. Brains he lacks, but he has a full cargo of guts." Even from his seat Aboli could see what Hal intended by the narrowing of his eyes and the way he changed his grip on his sword.
"Don't think of going back to give him satisfaction, Gundwane!"Aboli called sternly. "You will place every soul here at risk for any delay."
"I know you think I'm no match for Schreuder but things have changed, Aboli. I can beat him now. I'm sure of it in my heart." Aboli thought that he might well do so, for Hal was no longer a boy. The months on the walls had toughened him, and Aboli had seen him match strength with Big Daniel. "Leave me here to see to this business, man to man, and I will follow you later," Hal cried.
"No, Sir Hal!" shouted Big Daniel. "Maybe you could best him but not with that leg bitten to the bone. Leave your feud with the Dutchman for another time. We need you with us. There will be a hundred green-jackets following close behind him."
"No!" agreed Wally and Stan. "Stay with us, Captain." "We've put our trust in you," said Ned Tyler. "We can never find our way through the wilderness without a navigator. You can't desert us now."
