Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean (бесплатные онлайн книги читаем полные .TXT) 📗

But Kitty lay in a heap, her eyes closed, her body cold, and Carolan, shaken with a sudden horrible fear, knew that it was too late, for whether or not the irons were struck off could mean nothing to Kitty now.

The sun beat down incessantly, pitilessly upon the ship, and there was no breath of wind to help her on her way. She lay, as though exhausted, her timbers creaking as she rolled and lurched: her sails flapped against her masts as though they reproached themselves for their uselessness. Birds cruised about her; in the glittering water a shark moved silently. There was an air of weariness abroad; there was a relaxing of discipline. On their part of the deck, shut in by barricades, the convicts lay about in groups, seeking a little shade from the merciless sun. The heat was so intense, they just lay about, too languid to talk very much; they looked a dirty, docile collection of tamed animals on this tropical afternoon. On the other side of the barricade the sentry sat yawning. He had walked up and down, musket over his shoulder, until he could bear no more. What need to guard convicts in such weather! Who would want to do anything but seek a bit of shade and sleep on such an afternoon?

The men had had their two hours exercise; some had stayed on deck, sleeping, drowsing; and there had been no attempt to send them back to their stifling quarters. The Marines had possibly been too weary themselves to assert discipline. However, there lay Marcus, and beside him, Carolan and Esther. They were talking eagerly, for though they had caught occasional glimpses of each other they had not been able to converse in all the months since they had left Portsmouth.

Marcus said: “Ah! Thank God for a calm! Look at that sentry! The man’s yawning his head off. I’ll warrant there isn’t a soldier on the ship who is not more concerned with taking forty winks than guarding a cargo of miserable convicts!”

“Marcus!” said Carolan.

“You are not thinking…”

Esther burst in: “It would be most dangerous. They say that terrible things are done to those who try to mutiny.”

“Bless you both!” said Marcus.

“I plan no mutiny. I am awaiting the journey’s end complacently. What chance would mutiny have here, think you? We should be caught, flogged and sent to solitary confinement. I know what it means!”

Carolan raised herself and looked at him. He seemed, she thought, impervious to misery. His grey convict clothes were filthy; he was unwashed, his hair matted, his skin grimy: but his startling blue eyes were bluer in the tropics than they had been under London skies; they seemed to borrow their colour from the cloudless sky and the brilliant ocean; and they were as unfathomable as the sky, as dazzling as the sea, and as unconquerable.

Carolan thought, I must make the most of this time I spend with him. I must discover what it is that makes him so hopeful, so courageous. I must borrow some of his hopefulness, borrow some of his courage.

She told him brokenly of Kitty’s death.

“Oh, Marcus, she lay there for so long. They left her beside us … and in that hot and frightful place … Oh, Marcus, I cannot talk of it; it was hell. My Mamma … my beautiful Mammal If you could have seen her in her Haredon days … in front of her mirror, with Therese trying a ribbon against her hair … and then, there in the stinking hold of a prison ship, herself no longer, just a decaying body …”

Marcus put his hand over hers; so did Esther, and the hands of Marcus and Esther met. They smiled at each other, as they comforted Carolan.

“You must not think of it, darling.” said Marcus.

“It may be better so.”

“That is what I say,” said Esther.

“Esther has talked to me of Providence and happy releases until I could scream. Marcus, please do not you talk like that!”

“I will not. But I will say this, Carolan. She is well out of it. What do you think would have happened to her on the other side?”

“I do not know,” said Carolan.

“How should I know? What will happen to us?”

“We can bear it,” said Marcus, ‘because we are younger, and when we are young we look forward; it is the ageing who look back. What have you, Carolan, or you, Esther, to look back to? What have I? We must therefore look forward. We are luckier than those who have lived well and fallen on evil days. Hope is a happier companion than regrets.”

“Oh, I do agree! I do agree!” said Esther.

Tell us, Marcus,” insisted Carolan, ‘what we must expect when we get there.”

He was silent; his blue eyes watched an albatross rise from the water. He reached for Carolan’s hand, and his fingers curled about hers.

“How should I know!” said Marcus.

“Nevertheless, you do.” said Carolan.

“You have been before, have you not?”

“But the treatment of women is not the same as that of men.”

“And you of course never spoke to a woman the whole of your time. That was like you, Marcus, never to speak to a woman!”

He moved closer to her; his eyes smiled at her.

Esther said: “Oh, Carolan! How can you … when he … has been so kind to us!”

“His kindness to us does not alter the fact, Esther,” said Carolan.

“I do not believe that Marcus has never heard the story of a female convict’s adventures. For after all, would she not be eager to talk of them to her … friends?” She paused.

“And I would rather know the worst … or perhaps the best, for I swear my experiences of the last months have led me to expect no haven of rest … nothing indeed but misery and starvation and humiliation.”

“I know little,” said Marcus, “but I will tell you what I do know. An advertisement announcing your arrival will be sent out “A cargo of females …” and those who want servants will come aboard and choose.”

“There will be no alternative but to be chosen for a servant?”

“There will be other alternatives.”

“Do you think they will try to separate us?”

“You may be lucky and keep together.”

“And if we are not chosen?”

“Well, then you will be sent to the factory a sort of clearing house. You will be put to work sooner or later.”

“For seven years!” said Carolan.

“I shall be twenty-four before I am free … it seems a lifetime.”

“Bah!” said Marcus.

“What is seven years!”

“When I think how different my life might have been, had I never run away from Haredon…”

“Bah!” said Marcus again.

“How different all our lives might have been, had we not done this and that!”

“Mine could not have been more wretched!” said Carolan bitterly.

He let his fingers touch her wrist.

“Never despair, Carolan. How do you know what is waiting?”

She turned her head and looked into his eyes. They were burning with desire for her. She looked away quickly, but she was thrilled. No! She was not despairing. It was good to know that Marcus was her friend.

She shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun.

Esther said: “Good and evil are so oddly mixed. But for the heat we should not be together again, the three of us!”

“Oh, Esther! How sweet you are! Then it means something to you, if not to this hard-hearted Carolan. that I am here to talk with you!” Carolan said: “Marcus, tell us what happened to you when you got there before.”

“I was a fool in those days. I was over-bold, not cautious enough. I got myself into a deal of trouble. I spent three months in the hulks before I sailed. I loathed the hulks. Why, here you do feel you are getting somewhere; you are moving all the time; you come on deck; you see the sea; you are aware-of the motion. But a prison hulk is belli It was for me. I was a rebel in those days, and looked upon as a troublesome prisoner. One day, dear Carolan, and you too. sweet Esther, if you can bear the sight. I will show you the scars across my back. I could not count the lashes I have had.”

Esther was blushing; Carolan scowled at him. and his answer to the scowl was a mischievous smile.