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

"I will watch over him, even as you watch over his son." "You monstrous rogue, Abold" She struck him a playful blow on his great broad chest. "How do you know everything? We were so sure we had kept it a secret even from you." She turned laughing to Hal. "He knows!"

"Then all is lost." Hal shook his head. "For on the day it is born this rascal will take it as his own, even as he did with me."

She watched them climb the hill and wave from the crest. But as they disappeared the smile shrivelled on her lips and a single tear traced its way down her cheek. On her way back, she stopped beside the stream and washed it away. When she entered the camp again, Althuda looked up at her from the sword blade he was burnishing and smiled at her, unsuspecting of her distress. He marvelled at how beautiful and fresh she looked, even after all these months of hard travel in the wilderness.

When last they had been here, Hal and Aboli had hunted and explored these *-hills above the lagoon. They knew the run of the river, and they entered the deep gorge a mile above the lagoon, following an elephant path down to a shallow ford that they knew. They did not approach the lagoon from this direction. "There may be watering parties from the Gull," Aboli cautioned. Hal nodded and led them up the far side of the gorge and in a wide circuit around the back of the hills, out of sight of the lagoon.

They climbed the back slope of the hills until they were a few paces below the skyline. Hal knew that the cave of the ancient rock paintings, where he and Katinka had dallied, lay just over the crest in front of them, and that from the ridge there would be a panoramic view across the lagoon to the rocky heads and the ocean beyond.

"Use those trees to break your shape on the skyline," Aboli told him quietly.

Hal smiled. "You taught me well. I have not forgotten." He inched his way up the last few yards, followed by Aboli, and, gradually, the view down the far side opened to his gaze. He had not had sight of the sea for weeks now, and he felt his heart leap and his spirits soar as he looked upon its serene blue expanse, flecked with the white horses that pranced before the south-easter. It was the element that ruled his life and he had missed it sorely.

"Oh, for a- ship!" he whispered. "Please, God, let there be a ship!"

As he moved up, there before his eyes appeared the great grey castles of the heads, the bastions that guarded the entrance to the lagoon. He paused before taking another step, steeling himself for the terrible disappointment of finding the anchorage deserted. Like a gambler at Hazard, he had staked his life on this coup of the dice of Fate. He forced himself to take another slow step up the slope, then gasped, seized Aboli's arm and dug his fingers into the knotted muscles.

"The Gull!" he muttered, as though it were a prayer-of thanks. "And not alone! There is another fine ship with her."

For a long while neither spoke again, until Aboli said softly, "You have found the ship you promised them. If you can seize it, you will be a captain at last, Gundwane."

They crept forward and, on the crest of the hill, sank on their bellies and gazed down upon the wide lagoon below. "What ship is that with the Gull?" Hal asked. "I cannot make out her name from here."

"She is an Englishman," said Aboli, with certainty. "No other would cross her mizzen topgallant yard in that fashion."

"A Welshman, perhaps? She has a rake to her bows and a racy style to her sheer. They build them that way on the west coast."

"It is possible, but whoever she is, she's a fighting ship. Look at those guns. There would be few to match her in her class," Aboli murmured thoughtfully.

"Better than the Gull, even?" Hal looked at her with longing eyes.

Aboli shook his head. "You dare not try to take her, Gundwane. Surely she belongs to an honest English sea captain. If you lay hands upon her you turn all of us into pirates. Better we try for the Gull."

For another hour they lay on the hilltop, talking and planning quietly while they studied the two ships and the encampment among the trees on the near shore of the lagoon.

"By heavens!" Hal exclaimed abruptly. "There is the Buzzard himself. I would know that bush of fiery hair anywhere. "His voice was sharp with hatred and anger. "He is going out to the other ship. See him climb the ladder without a by-your-leave, as if he owns it."

"Who is that greeting him at the companionway?" Aboli asked. "I swear I know that walk, and the bald scalp shining in the sunlight."

"It cannot be Sam Bowles aboard that frigate... but it is," Hal marvelled. "There is something very strange afoot here, Aboli. How may we find out what it is?"

While they watched the sun begin to slide down the western sky, Hal tried to keep his rage under control. Down there were the two men responsible for his father's terrible death. He relived every detail of his agony and he hated Sam Bowles and the Buzzard to the point where he knew that his emotions might override his reason. His strong instinct was to throw all else aside, go down to confront them and seek retribution for his father's agony and death.

I must not let it happen, he told himself. I must think first of Sukeena and the son that she carries for me.

Aboli touched his arm and pointed down the hill. The rays of the sinking sun had changed the angle of the shadows of the trees of the forest, so that they could see down more clearly through them into the encampment.

"The Buzzard is digging fortifications, down there." Aboli was puzzled. "But there is no plan to them. His trenches are all higgledy-piggledy."

"Yet all his men seem to be at work in the diggings. There must be some plan-" Hal broke off and laughed. "Of course! This is why he came back to the lagoon! He is still searching for my father's hoard."