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

"He is a long way off course." Aboli chuckled. "Perhaps Jiri and Matesi have deliberately misled him."

"Sweet Mary, of course those rascals have played the fool with him. Cumbrae bought more than he bargained for in the slave market. They will tweak his nose while they pretend to grovel and call him Lardy." He smiled at the thought, then became serious again. "Do you think they may still be down there, or has the Buzzard murdered them already?"

"No, he will keep them alive as long as he thinks they are of value to him. He is digging, so he is still hoping. My guess is that they are still alive."

"We must watch for them." For another hour they lay on the hilltop in silence, then Hal said, "The tide is turning. The strange frigate is swinging on her moorings." They watched her bow and curtsy to the ebb with a stately grace, and then Hal spoke again. "Now I can see the name on her transom, but it is difficult to read. Is it the Golden Swan? The Golden Hart? No, I think not. "Tis the Golden Bough!"

"A fine name for a fine ship," said Aboli, and then he started, and pointed excitedly down at the network of trenches and pits amongst the trees. "There are black men coming out of that ditch, three of them. Is that Jiri? Your eyes are sharper than mine."

"By heavens! So it is, and Matesi and Kimatti behind him."

"They are taking them to a hut near the water's edge. That must be where they lock them up at night."

"Aboli, we must speak to them. I will go down as soon as it's dark and try to reach their hut. What time will the moon rise?"

"An hour after midnight," Aboli answered him. "But I will not let you go. I made a promise to Sukeena Besides your white skin shines like a mirror. I will go."

Stripped naked, Aboli waded out from the far shore until the water reached his chin and struck out in a dog-paddle that made no splash and left only a silent oily wake behind his head. When he reached the far shore, he lay in the shallows until he was certain the beach was clear. Then he crawled swiftly across the open sand and huddled against the hole of the first tree.

One or two camp fires were burning in the grove, and from around them he heard the sound of men's voices and an occasional snatch of song or a shout of laughter. The flames gave him enough light to discern the hut where the slaves where imprisoned. Near the front of it he picked out the glow of a burning match on the lock of a musket, and from this he placed the single sentry, who sat with his back to a tree covering the door of the hut.

They are careless, he thought. Only one guard, and he seems to be asleep.

He crept forward on hands and knees, but before he reached the back wall of the hut he heard footsteps and moved quickly to the shelter of another tree-trunk and crouched there. Two of the Buzzard's sailors came sauntering through the grove towards him. They were arguing loudly.

"I'll not sail with that little weasel," one declared. "He would cut a throat for the fun of it."

"So would you, Willy MacGregor."

"Aye, but I'd no" be using a pizened blade, like Sam Bowles would."

"You'll sail with whoever the Buzzard says you will, and that's an end to your carping," his mate announced and paused beside the tree where Aboli crouched. He lifted his petticoats and urinated noisily against the trunk. "By the devil's nuggets, even with Sam Bowles as captain I'll be happy enough to get away from this place. I left bonnie Scotland to escape the coal pit, and here I am digging holes again." He shook the droplets vigorously from himself and the two walked on.

Aboli waited until they were well clear, and then crawled to the rear wall of the hut. He found that it was plastered with unburnt clay, but that chunks of this were falling from the framework of woven branches beneath. He crawled slowly along the wall, gently probing each crack with a stalk of grass until he found a chink that went right through. He placed his lips to the opening and whispered softly, "Jiri!"

He heard a startled movement on the far side of the wall, and a moment later a fearful whisper came back. "Is that the voice of Aboli, or is it his ghost?"

"I am alive. Here feel the warmth of my finger "tis not the hand of a dead man."

They whispered to each other for almost an hour before Aboli left the hut and crawled back down the beach. He slipped into the waters of the lagoon like an otter.

The dawn was painting the eastern sky the colours of lemons and ripe apricots when Aboli climbed the hill again to where he had left Hal. Hal was not in the cave, but when Aboli gave a soft warbling bird-call, he stepped out from behind the hanging vines that screened the entrance, his cutlass in his hand.

"I have news," said Aboli. "For once the gods have been kind."

"Tell me!" Hal commanded eagerly, as he sheathed the blade. They sat side by side in the entrance to the cave from where they could keep the full sweep of the lagoon under their eyes, while Aboli related in detail everything that Jiri had been able to tell him.

Hal exclaimed when Aboli described the massacre of the captain and men of the Golden Bough, and the way in which Sam Bowles had drowned the wounded like unwanted kittens in the shallows of the lagoon. "Even for the Buzzard that is a deed that reeks of hell itself."

"Not all were killed," Aboli told him. "Jiri says that a large number of the survivors are locked up in the main hold of the Golden Bough." Hal nodded thoughtfully. "He says too that the Buzzard has given the command of the Golden Bough to Sam Bowles."

"By heaven, that rogue has come up in the world," Hal exclaimed. "But all this could work to our advantage. The Golden Bough has become a pirate ship, and is now fair game for us. However, it will be a dangerous enterprise to hunt the Buzzard in his own nest." He lapsed into a long silence, and Aboli did not disturb him.