“Roxanne.” His voice was hesitant. “I want you to know, I’d never have turned you over to Yen Chiang. Or to any other man.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” she said softly.
“Yes, I guess you did,” he said, his face grim. “I guess there are no secrets between us. We know what we are—and how we feel.”
She was lying on the bunk, and now she lifted her face to him and threw out an arm in a lovely feminine gesture that outlined her soft figure in the lamplight. In the muggy heat, she was completely naked and had only pulled the sheet about her hastily as he came into the cabin. Now she swept that sheet away. “You’ll win,” she said confidently. “I know you will.”
She lay there before him, a slender column of peach and gold in the swinging light of the ship’s lamp. Her dark-blond hair floated gleaming around her bare shoulders. Her firm young breasts rose and fell softly with her breathing, and her whole lustrous body by its gentle mien invited him to embrace her. She put both her hands on his shoulders and, smiling, twined her arms around his neck. As her soft breasts brushed the light hairs of his chest, she felt his muscles ripple at the touch. Gently, she drew his tired, bearded face down to hers. “I know you will” she whispered.
He took her then, wordlessly, and with a kind of desperation. His arms were warm around her and his lips satin smooth against her own soft parted mouth, her pulsing white throat, her tingling breasts. Her whole body seemed to vibrate softly as she drew to him. fitting her yielding flesh to his own.
His body was lit with feverish desire, consumed by a compelling overpowering need. She felt that, with his body, he was making a statement to the earth that bred him—in case he should be killed on the morrow—and a statement to her: I am Rhodes. I am your lover. I am the man whose arms were made to hold you forever, who will fight for you and if necessary die for you. It was all there in the wild wonder and tenderness of his embrace, and she knew as they clung together in desperate intimacy there in the muggy heat of the cabin, what it was to love a man feeling that she might be sending him off to die.
Passionately, she clung to him, and no embrace in her whole lifetime had ever had for her the meaning of this one. An exalted happiness consumed her, for he had forgiven her at last. It was all there unspoken in the fierce tenderness of that wild embrace. Their long and clashing battle as a man and woman that had spanned continents was over. Tonight they were one. Inseparable. Forever.
And so they went where passion led them. Driven upward to heights undreamed of, every sense alive, then swept gustily down into wild sweet valleys laden with the perfume of love. Up distant unexplored reaches to a peak of passion, a bliss that mounted into heaven and swept the world away.
From those heights they descended gradually as she held him in her arms. Rising a little on his elbows, Rhodes looked down at her and smiled a very tender smile that brought a tremulous response to her own lips and misted her blue eyes with tears of grief for the wasted years without him. Tears of wonder that she had found him again—and that he loved her.
“Don’t cry,” he said gently, and brushed her wet lashes with his warm lips. “I’ve spent my life getting out of tight places. I’ll think of something.”
Wordlessly, she nodded. He was thinking of tomorrow, while she had been thinking of all their reckless wasted lives. “I love you, Rhodes,” she said, so softly it was only a whisper on the sighing wind.
“I’ll take that with me,” he said, “when I go to meet Yen Chiang,” and for a moment buried his dark bearded face in the sweet valley between her breasts.
Then he rolled over on the bunk and slept as if there were no Yen Chiang with his crew of experienced cutthroats stalking them across the waves.
Listening to his even breathing, Roxanne lay on one arm and looked at him. Relaxed and naked by her side, one lean buttock gently pressed against her soft stomach, he was a noble figure, his back and shoulders and arms deeply bronzed, his hips and muscular thighs gleaming almost as pale as her own, his calves and feet bronzed where he had walked barefoot, with trousers rolled up, across the decks on southern seas.
What a man he was, she thought dreamily. She yearned to reach out and touch him again, to bring him back to her, but sternly she resisted the impulse. For he had not slept the whole time they fought the storm, and tomorrow he would meet in battle the most notorious pirate to harry these coasts.
She leaned back luxuriantly, stretched her body softly, and lived over again in joy the moments in which he had possessed her, every look, every touch, every vivid flame ... ah, Rhodes, Rhodes. Her body glowed with memories.
And then to her surprise—because she had not expected to sleep the night before the battle—she slept deeply and well, lulled by the roll of the ship on the timeless ocean.
When she woke, Rhodes was standing dressed and looking very fit.
“We’ve had a bit of luck,” he said, brushing back a lock of dark hair impatiently. “I was able to see through my glass that Yen Chiang has had to jettison the cannon he usually carries, so it will be a small-arms war.”
Cannon. She had not thought of cannons.
“We’ve plenty of ammunition, but he outmans us. I’ve thought of a possible way to even the score. We’ve some dynamite on board, packed silky soft and lashed down tight—even the typhoon didn’t rip it loose. It was a danger, and I’d have thrown it over but for the likely event of meeting someone like Yen Chiang again. I’ve fixed up some packets of it and fuses. When they get close enough to board I’ll throw the packets over. Should account for a few.”
She shuddered. “Be careful,” she said.
“Well, it isn’t a time for being careful,” he said, and she knew from the reckless glint in his eyes why his men adored him. This man before her had subtly changed from the lover of the night before. This was the wild Rhodes who led his men through the storm and battles, this was the leader they admired.
She sat up. “I’ll dress,” she said quickly, meaning to accompany him to the deck.
“You’ll stay below,” he said sternly. “I don’t want to expose you to a stray bullet or have any long knives slashing at you. And take this.” He handed her a pistol. “Six shots in it. Remember, just in case, save the last one for yourself.”
Soberly she took the gun. It felt heavy in her hand.
“Easy to fire,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “I learned in the Klondike.”
“Good girl,” said Rhodes. “Don’t look so down. We’ll make out, you’ll see.” He went out, whistling, a jaunty figure going perhaps to his doom. She watched his departure somberly.
It was not long before she heard firing. A spatter of shots, no more. And then more gunfire as the two ships began a desultory running battle. When she heard actual explosions, she knew that Rhodes must have thrown the lighted sticks of dynamite. There were shouts and screams and then a hard shudder that rocked the hull. The Chinese junk must have rammed them. Roxanne closed her eyes and prayed.
Up on the deck she could hear a terrible clamor. Her mind’s eye saw it plainly. Wild-eyed, goldenskinned pirates, their black hair in tight queues, leaping across from the junk, slashing with wicked long knives and great curved scimitars. Rhodes . . . perhaps they were killing him now.
That single thought goaded her to action. She would not lie here below decks, hiding while above her the crew of the Lass were killed to the last man! There were six bullets in the gun Rhodes had given her, and she would make them count.
Furious with herself that she had waited this long, she flung the door open, dashed up to the deck—and stopped. Before her was a scene of horrible shouting confusion, a bloody madness beyond anything she had imagined. Up and down the Lass's slanted deck, against a livid background of smoke and fire from the explosions on the junk, men fought—with guns, with knives, with spars, with anything they could lay hands to. Their feet slid and skittered on wet patches of blood and gore, and they cursed and roared and slashed in a frenzy. A bullet whistled by h
er head, and she winced back. But her questing eye had found Rhodes in the thick of it. At the moment her eyes spotted him, he was suddenly hurled backward. Losing his footing on a slippery spot he skidded on his back almost to her feet. Before he could regain his stance, a huge figure, swinging a scimitar with a golden hilt, leaped out of the pack and sprang toward him with a bellow. The figure was large and muscular and Chinese. His black hair was worn in a small neat queue. His black eyes glittered in a ferocious face. A jade amulet on a gold chain swung against his powerful sweating chest. That splendid physical specimen paused for a moment in surprise at sight of Roxanne, his black eyes widening at sight of this new and desirable prize. Then the big curved scimitar sang as he swept it upward. In a split second, it would flash down full force upon the fallen Rhodes.
And in that split second Roxanne raised the gun and shot Yen Chiang.
The scimitar that was upraised to strike down the fallen Rhodes was convulsively held by nerveless fingers. The stalwart towering figure with the amulet tottered forward on one foot, blood gushing from a wound in the temple, and crashed to the deck beside Rhodes. A terrible tortured cry went up from Yen Chiang’s men to see their leader slain.
In wavering horror, Roxanne regarded her kill.
“Good girl,” grinned Rhodes, scrambling up. “I think we’ve got them now.” He took the smoking gun from her trembling fingers. “Get back below.”
But she did not go. Weak and sick, she leaned against the hatch cover and watched the battle surge back and forth in the choking smoke. Sometimes she lost sight of Rhodes in the fray. Clinging to the hatch cover, she prayed in silent terror. Nearby the burning junk bobbed in the water, occasionally jarring against their hull, sending a shudder through the Virginia Lass.
Near the rail, Rhodes—his gun now empty and discarded—was grimly fighting two burly Chinese. As she watched, a third—a giant with a red sash tied around his waist, who seemed to have assumed command, surged forward. Bevin blocked his way, but the big pirate sent him sprawling. Catching Rhodes unaware, he brought his heavy fist up and crashed it full force into Rhodes’s jaw. Roxanne screamed, as the force of the blow lifted Rhodes from the deck and hurled him over the rail, to slide along the junk’s evilly lit and slanting deck.
With a roar this new leader plunged after Rhodes, and both men disappeared into a billow of black smoke. Roxanne ran forward, unmindful of the battle. But all the pirates were leaving now. In answer to their new leader’s bawled commands, which reached them through the smoke, they disengaged and leaped wildly across to the deck of their own vessel. Pushing free with long poles, they widened the distance between the junk and the Lass.
In those wild moments Roxanne tried to hurl herself over onto the junk’s deck in pursuit, but Bevin caught her and dragged her back. She twisted in his arms, clawing desperately at the hands that held her. “Can’t you see they have him?” she screamed. “They have Rhodes!”
“Hold it, miss!” panted Bevin. “No point getting yourself killed! You’d never make it—it’s too far to jump!”
And it was. Through a haze of horror Roxanne could see that murky strip of green sea, ever widening as the burning junk drifted away from them. On its deck all was activity as men rushed about fighting the fire.
“You can’t leave him there!” she cried desperately. Bevin stared at her, his face tortured. “Gates, you speak Chinese,” he cried, turning to a bleeding crewman who was staring after the departing junk in fascination. “Yell at them heathen that we’ll ransom our captain—but only if he’s let go unharmed!”
Leaving a trail of blood from a gash in his leg, Gates staggered to the rail, yelling something in Chinese. His answer was given back to him by the junk’s new leader, who appeared out of the smoke at the rail, roaring what could only be curses, and flung a piece of burning wood at him. Gates ducked as the burning wood flew across the slippery deck, leaving a trail of sparks. Bevin loosened Roxanne and leaped forward to stamp out the flames and kick the burning brand overboard.
Mutely Roxanne turned to Gates—his defeated look gave her her answer. “They ain’t in no mood to bargain,” muttered Gates, turning to stare at the junk through the smoke as the distance between them increased.
“Rhodes!” screamed Roxanne despairingly across the water. “Rhodes!”
But only the shouts and the roaring sound of the fire came back to her.
“We’ll follow them, miss!” cried Bevin, pulling her back from the rail. “Come away! They could still have some ammunition—you could get yourself shot standing here!”
Limp and dazed, Roxanne let him lead her away.
All day they followed the junk as well as they could, two disabled vessels drifting. Her eyes dark with suffering, Roxanne clung to the rail. She refused food, refused to go below. Only to help cleanse and bandage the wounds of the men would she turn from her vigil. Bevin, himself unhurt, watched her with pity in his eyes.
Night closed down thick as smoke. The moon, which had shone so brightly the night before, now hid behind a bank of clouds. Bevin cursed as the junk’s rakish outline disappeared into the murk.
Morning found them alone on an empty sea. Twisting nervous fingers, Roxanne turned to Bevin. “The junk didn’t—didn’t sink?” she asked anxiously.
“No, miss,” he assured her. “They got the fire out. Most likely they’re making for some cove where they know they can patch up their vessel.” He studied her, chewing his lip as he thought. “It’s a big ocean. We’d better take you back to Singapore—it’s what the captain would want, miss. We got some patchin’ to do ourselves on the Lass. And then we’ll go lookin’ for him.”
Nor could she sway Bevin from his purpose. Even though she protested, pleaded and wept, he would not heed her.
Back to the exotic international port of Singapore the crippled Loss sailed; and Roxanne, still barefoot and clad in her blue and gold sarong, went ashore with Bevin and the rest of the crew. In the crowd of carriages waiting at the dock for a big white ocean liner to arrive, Roxanne passed the wife of a former French ambassador, with whom she had once been friendly. This woman, sitting dressed in the latest Parisian mode, stared at Roxanne in horror through her lorgnette from underneath a wide straw hat laden with tulle.
She believes I've gone native, thought Roxanne grimly, and gave the French woman a small ironic bow.
She was rewarded by a gasp as the lorgnette snapped shut and the carriage holding the lady abruptly departed. It was but a sample of what awaited her. She went directly to her house, walking barefoot for she had no money even for a rickshaw, and she was embarrassed to ask Bevin—whom she had left on the wharf—for help. She found her house now occupied by a Chinese family, who stared at her stolidly. Her things were gone, as were her servants. Even the furniture had been taken. Inquiries availed her nothing, only establishing that her young Chinese housekeeper had quickly sold off everything and disappeared. So, Roxanne thought, that pretty, doll-like face had concealed not the mysteries of the fabled East but simple treachery.
Tired and still barefoot, she went to the bank and made a withdrawal on the money Leighton had left for her. There was some trouble with her identification, of course. The clerk, horrified at her appearance, insisted on calling the bank manager, who blinked but identified Roxanne. Her balance was quite low, she realized. After all, the money had to run out sometime.
She rented a cheap room for herself in the native quarter and tried to get a job. After a while she realized the impossibility of that and gave up. This was a city bursting with cheap Chinese labor, and she—a scandalous woman by any standard—could hardly hope to be hired as governess or clerk.
Living frugally, she settled down to wait for word of Rhodes.
Two months she waited. Three. There was no word. She had tried to make inquiries, but they came to nothing. Rhodes seemed to have vanished into the wilds of the Indian Ocean or the South China Sea. The months dragged on to six, and Roxanne was near panic. She worked at menial jobs in res
taurants for her food, and finally took in fine laundry from the houses of women where once she had taken tea. But her lovely marketable body she would not sell—that now belonged to Rhodes.
A whole year passed and finally, dully, the truth sank in on her: Rhodes was not coming. She did not believe him dead; Bevin would have returned to tell her that—if he knew. But the Virginia Lass had really been in no shape to voyage out; Bevin had docked long enough for only the most necessary repairs before setting forth again. Perhaps the Lass had been lost in one of the sharp squalls that rose up out of nowhere on the Indian Ocean. Perhaps Bevin and his crew were gone ... as Rhodes was gone. Vanished into the blue wilderness of water.
At last, thin and disheartened, she faced the truth: Rhodes was not coming. She had lost him—this time for good. Sad and lonely, she took to walking on the docks, staring hungrily at the ships in the harbor, some of them bound for America. Home ... so desperately she wanted to go home.
One day on the dock she paused to watch a steamer named the Trade Winds. And saw, coming down the gangplank, a miner for whom she had done laundry in Dawson City, and who had helped her in Nome.
“Toby Hart,” she hailed him joyfully. “It’s been a long time!”
“Well, if it ain’t the Dawson blond!” he cried. “Beg yer pardon, Miss Roxanne, but that was startled out of me.” He wrung her hand, saw her shabby mended clothes, the toes gone out of her cheap shoes. “Ain’t things going well with you, Miss Roxanne?”
Sadly she shook her head. “Toby,” she asked wistfully, “do you think you could get me signed on as stewardess aboard your ship? I don’t care where she’s bound—anywhere that’s away from Singapore.”
He meditated. “I could, Miss Roxanne, but—well, she’s bound for San Francisco and I—I heard about your trouble in Nome . . . about your killing those men. Word was you had run away before they hung you.”
She smiled at him through her tears. “The only man I ever killed, Toby, was a Chinese pirate. And I don’t care if they hang me when I get there—I’m going home.”
These Golden Pleasures Page 43