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

"It was not my own fault! I swear I would not have done it but I was in terror of my life."

The crew shouted him down, and it was some minutes until Hal could quieten them. Then he asked, "So you do not deny the charges against you?"

"What use denying it?" one of the men shouted. "We all saw it with our own eyes."

Sam Bowles was weeping loudly now. "For the love of sweet Jesus have mercy, Sir Henry. I know I have erred, but give me a chance and you will find no more trusty and loving creature to serve you all the days of your life."

The sight of Bowles disgusted Hal so deeply that he wanted to wash the foul taste of it from his mouth. Suddenly an image appeared in the eye of his mind. It was of his father lying on the litter, being borne away to the scaffold, his body broken and twisted from the rack. He began to tremble.

Beside him, Sukeena sensed his distress. She laid her hand softly on his arm to steady him. He drew a deep, slow breath and fought back the black waves of sorrow that threatened to overwhelm him. "Samuel Bowles, you have admitted your guilt to all the charges brought against you. Is there anything that you wish to say before I pronounce sentence upon you?" Grimly he stared into Sam's flooded eyes, and watched a strange transformation take place. He realized that the tears were a device that Sam could call upon at will. Something else burned out from a deep and hidden part of his soul, a nimbus so feral and evil that he doubted he still looked into the eyes of a human being and not those of a wild beast standing at bay.

"You think you hate me, Henry Courtney? You do not know what hatred truly is. I glory in the thought of your father screaming on the rack. Sam Bowles did that. Remember it every day you live. Sam Bowles might be dead but Sam Bowles did that!" His voice rose to a scream, and spittle foamed on his lips. His own evil overwhelmed him and his shrieks were barely coherent. "This is my ship, my own ship. I would have been Captain Samuel Bowles, and you took it from me. May the devil drink your blood in hell. May he dance on your father's twisted and rotting corpse, Henry Courtney."

Hal turned away from the revolting spectacle, trying to close his ears to the stream of invective.

"Mister Tyler." He spoke loudly enough for all the crew to hear above Sam Bowles's screams. "We will waste no more of the ship's time with this matter. The prisoner is to be hanged immediately. Reeve a rope to the main yard. -" "Gundwane!" Aboli roared a warning. "Behind you!" And he started forward too late to intervene. Sam Bowles had reached under his petticoats. Strapped to the inside of his thigh was a leather sheath. He was as swift as a striking adder. In his hand the blade of the stiletto sparkled like a sliver of crystal, pretty as a maiden's bauble. He threw it with a snap of his wrist.

Hal had begun to turn to Aboli's warning, but Sam was swifter. The dagger flitted across the space that separated them, and Hal winced in anticipation of the sting of the razor-edged blade burying itself in his flesh. For an instant he doubted his own senses, for he felt no blow.

He looked down and saw that Sukeena had flung out one slim bare arm to block the throw. The silver blade had struck an inch below her elbow and buried itself to the haft.

"Sweet Jesus, shield her!" Hal blurted, seized her in his arms and hugged her to him. Both of them stared down at the hilt of the dagger protruding from her flesh.

Aboli reached Sam Bowles the instant after the stiletto had flown from his fingers and sent him crashing to the deck with a blow of his bunched fist. Ned Tyler and a dozen men leapt forward to seize him, and drag him to his feet. Sam shook his head blearily for Aboli's fist had stunned him. Blood dribbled from the side of his mouth.

"Reeve a rope through the main yard block," Ned Tyler shouted, and a man raced up the shrouds to obey. He ran out along the main yard, and a minute later the rope fell down through the sheave and its tail flopped onto the deck.

"The blade has gone deep," Hal whispered, as he held Sukeena against his chest and tenderly lifted her wounded arm.

"It is thin and sharp." Sukeena smiled bravely up at him. "So sharp I hardly felt it. Draw the blade swiftly, my darling, and it will heal cleanly."

"Help me here! Hold her arm," Hal called to Aboli, who sprang to his side, grasped the slim engraved hilt and, with one swift motion, plucked the blade from Sukeena's flesh. It came away with surprising ease.

She said softly, "There is little harm done," but her cheeks had paled and tears trembled on her lower eyelids. Hal lifted her in his arms and started towards the companionway of the stern. A wild scream stopped him.

Sam Bowles stood beneath the dangling rope. Ned Tyler was snugging the noose down under his ear. Four men waited ready with the tail of the rope in their hands.

"Your bitch is dead, Henry Courtney. She is dead just like your bastard sire. Sam Bowles killed both of them. Glory be, Captain Bloody Courtney, remember me in your prayers. I am the man you will never forget." "Tis a little cut. The Princess is a strong, brave girl.

She will live on," Ned muttered grimly in Sam Bowles's ear. "You are the one who is dead, Sam Bowles." He stepped back and nodded to the men on the rope's end, who walked away with it, slapping their bare feet on the deck timbers in unison.

The instant before the rope came up tight and stopped his breath, Sam screamed again, "Look well at the blade that cut your whore, Captain. Think on Sam Bowles when you try the point." The rope bit into his throat and yanked him off his feet, throttling the next word before it reached his lips.

The crew howled with wolflike glee as Sam Bowles rose spiralling in the air, swinging on the rope's end as the Golden Bough rotted under him. His legs kicked and danced so that the chains on his ankles tinkled like sleigh bells.

He was still twitching and gurgling when his neck jammed up tight against the sheave block at the end of the main yard high above the deck.