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

"Where are you going?" Althuda asked.

"There is no time to explain. We will return before dawn."

Hal and Aboli crossed the channel to the mainland and then hurried back through the forest in the darkness, but when they reached the line of hills Hal stopped and said, "There is something I have to find."

He turned back towards the flickering lights of the pirate camp, moving slowly and pausing often to get his bearings, until at last he stopped at the base of a tall tree.

"This is the one." With the point of his cutlass he probed the soft loamy earth around the roots. He felt it strike metal, and fell to his knees. He dug with his bare hands, then lifted the golden chain and held it to catch the starlight.

"Tis your father's Nautonnier seal." Aboli recognized it at once.

"The ring also. And the locket with its portrait of my mother." Hal stood up and wiped the damp earth from the glass that had protected the miniature. "With these in my hands, I feel a whole man again." He dropped the treasures into his leather pouch.

"Let us go on, before we are discovered."

It was after midnight when, once again, they scrambled down the side of the gorge and Big Daniel challenged them softly as they reached the riverbank.

"Tis me," Hal reassured him, and the others emerged from where they were hidden.

"Stay here," Hal ordered. "Aboli and I will return shortly." The two set off upstream. Hal led the climb to the ledge and groped his way into the blackness of the cave. Working in the cahdle's feeble light, they tied the cutlasses into bundles of ten, then stacked them at the entrance. Hal emptied one of the chests of its precious contents, piling the gold bars disdainfully in a corner of the cave, and packed twenty pistols into the empty chest.

Then they rolled the kegs of gunpowder, with the slow match out onto the narrow ledge, and set up the gantry and sheave blocks with the rope rove through. Hal scrambled back down the cliff. When he reached the riverbank he whistled softly. Aboli lowered the bundles of weapons and the kegs down to him.

It was heavy work, but Aboli's great muscles made light of it. When they had finished Aboli climbed down to join Hal, and they began the weary porterage of the goods down to where Big Daniel and the other seamen waited.

"I recognize these," Big Daniel chuckled, as he ran his hands over a bundle of cutlasses then examined them in the moonlight.

"Here is something else you will recognize," Hal told him, and gave him two of the heavy powder kegs to carry.

All of them carrying as much as their backs would bear, they toiled up the side of the gorge, dumped their burdens and then scrambled down again to bring up the next load. At last fully laden they struck out through the forest. Hal made only one detour to cache the two kegs of powder, a bundle of slow-match, and three cutlasses in the cave of the rock paintings. Then they went on again.

It was almost morning when at last they joined Althuda and his band on the island. They ate the cold smoked venison that Sukeena and Zwaantie had ready for them. Then, when the others rolled in their karosses, Hal took Sukeena aside and showed her the great seal of the Nautonnier and the locket.

"Where did you find these, Gundwane?"

"I hid them in the forest on the day we were captured." "Who is the woman?" She studied the portrait. "Edwina Courtney, my mother."

"Oh, Hal, she is beautiful. You have her eyes." "Give my son those same eyes."

"I will try. With all my heart I will try."

In the late afternoon Hal roused the others and assigned their duties to them.

"Sabah, take the pistols out of the chest and draw the loads. Reload them, then pack them back into the chest to keep them dry." The other man set to work at once.

"Big Daniel will help me load the boats. Ned, you take the women down to the beach and explain to them how to help you launch the second boat when the time comes. They must leave everything else behind. There will be neither space nor time to care for extra baggage."

"Even my bags?" Sukeena asked.

Hal hesitated then nodded firmly. "Even your bags," he said, and she did not argue, merely gave him a demure look from under her lashes before she and Zwaantie, carrying Bobby strapped to her back, followed Ned away through the trees.

"Come with me, Aboli." Hal took his arm and they moved silently to the top end of the island. Then they crept forward on hands and knees until they could lie and look across the open stretch of water at the beach where the boats from the Gull and the Golden Bough were drawn up below the encampment.

While they kept watch Hal explained the finer details and small modifications to his original plan. From time to time Aboli's tattooed head nodded. In the end he said, "It is a good and simple plan, and if the gods are kind, it will work."

In the sunset they studied the two ships anchored in the channel and watched the activity on the beach. As it grew darker, the teams of men who had worked all day, digging the Buzzard's trenches, were relieved. Some came down to bathe in the lagoon. Others rowed out to their berths on the Gull.

Smoke from their cooking fires spiralled up through the trees and spread in a pale blue haze across the waters. Hal and Aboli could smell grilling fish on the smoke. Sound carried clearly across the still water. They could hear men's voices and even make out something of what they were saying, a shouted oath or a boisterous argument. Twice Hal was sure that he recognized the Buzzard's voice but they had no further sight of him. just as darkness began to fall a longboat pulled away from the side of the Golden Bough and headed in towards the beach.