‘At least I was fortunate to win your love,’ he murmured.
‘I disagree, Captain Marston. I would say you lose in every direction,’ laughed Drum, coming to stand beside them once more, having watched their two bodies merge into one.
As he drew himself up straight, there was a hard glitter in Stuart’s dark eyes, but his gaze went past Drum O’Leary and he smiled, a slow, curiously triumphant, satisfied smile, his teeth flashing in the darkness of his handsome face.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said softly. ‘Victory is not entirely on your side, O’Leary. Look over there and tell me—what do you see?’
All sails filled with air, two ships came racing down the wind to the Sea Hawk’s aid, their ensigns fluttering proudly in the wind, the sunlight gleaming ominously on the muzzles of the guns protruding from their ports. So preoccupied had everyone been that they had failed to notice the ships bearing down on them. Cursing loudly, Drum immediately ordered the pirate crews off the Sea Hawk, knowing they stood little chance of surviving a confrontation with two heavily armed merchantmen.
There was a bright flash from one of the oncoming vessel’s bow guns as she fired a shot, aiming wide so as not to damage the Sea Hawk, but threatening enough to send the pirates scuttling back to their own ships and preparing to sail, leaving most of the Sea Hawk’s cargo intact.
Drum took hold of Cassandra’s arm to escort her on board the Dolphin. The contact inflamed Stuart. ‘Take your filthy hands off her,’ he raged, lunging towards him, only to find a knife materialise, pressed to his throat by the brute of a pirate who had restrained him earlier, whose look and savage grin made no secret of the fact that he would dearly like to slice it open.
Cassandra spun round in alarm. ‘Don’t worry about me, Stuart. I know I have to make a new life for myself, but I shall never lose hope that one day you will be able to look on me and see me as I am, for myself alone—and not as the daughter of Nathaniel Wylde. Goodbye, my love.’
Stuart reached out and tried to take hold of her, to prevent her from leaving him, but he felt the warm trickle of blood run down his neck as the point of the pirate’s curved blade pierced his flesh.
‘Go, if you must, Cassandra,’ he called after her, his voice vibrant and resolute, ‘but I will not give you up. I will search for you and there will be no place on God’s earth where you can hide from me. My determination to find you will be as great as it was when I hunted down your father. I swear it.’ He steeled himself to watch her go, which she did with a terrible effort of will and without looking back.
Stuart did not know how long he stood at the rail, because his heart, like his mind, was void of everything but his loss. It was only when James touched his arm that he turned.
Like everyone else on board the Sea Hawk, James was now aware of Cassandra’s identity and his face was devoid of every emotion except sympathy and understanding. ‘What can I say? I didn’t know. None of us did. I am sorry—for both of you.’
Stuart nodded, his expression grim.
‘It’s better this way,’ James went on, aware of how wretched Stuart must be feeling. ‘Being the daughter of Nathaniel Wylde, had she remained on board the crew would have mutinied—you must know that. She did the wisest thing, Stuart. If she were to return to England, in all probability she would hang. Not even you could save her from that.’
Stuart nodded wearily. ‘We will never know, but—you’re right, James. She did the wisest thing, and in so doing saved all our lives. We have all need to be grateful to her for that.’ He turned to see the two ships of the Company ready to draw alongside, Samuel Tillotson’s Spirit of Enterprise ahead of the other. Stuart remembered very little of what happened after that. Like most merchantmen, the Sea Hawk carried spare gear and a team of craftsmen, who worked round the clock to repair the damage done to the masts and spars by the storm and the pirates, enabling them to sail for England, but much time had been lost.
Chapter Twelve
Cassandra’s parting from Stuart had left her a desperate and broken woman. She existed in a deadly calm and a coldness encapsulated her heart in the same way as it does a corpse. It was a situation she believed she would never recover from.
She hated the Dolphin and all the men on it, but she endured it as best she could, rejecting all attempts at friendship by Drum and other members of the pirate crew. The men who sailed on Drum O’Leary’s ship were a brutal and dissipated band of men, who bore little or no respect for her as a woman. It was only the fact that she was Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter and under Drum’s protection that saved her from being molested.
The Dolphin sailed to the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa, putting in at Tenerife so that she could be careened. Careening was a major operation that involved beaching the vessel and scraping the barnacles and weeds off the hull, giving Cassandra plenty of time to bask in the hot sun and try to bring some semblance of order back to her mind.
When the ship finally sailed south for the Cape Verde Islands, her face was set implacably against the future. There were people on the islands she knew, people who knew her—searovers’ families of all nationalities, people she had hoped never to set eyes on again, believing she would never have to. She would live there and let time run its course until she had decided what to do. But fate had a cruel way of turning things about.
Two heavily armed British naval vessels, cruising in the area to protect British shipping—mainly the huge East Indiamen leaving the trading posts on Africa’s west coast—hove in sight. Drum tried to dodge and outrun them, but the Dolphin was no match for naval vessels of this strength, which could both outgun and outman it.
They set more canvas and endeavoured to escape, but the Dolphin was unable to throw them off. The two ships gained on her and, when they recognised her, knowing her to be a pirate ship, they began firing their guns. The Dolphin was hit badly; when the naval vessels drew alongside the fighting was fierce. Few of the pirate crew survived the fierce engagement. Many were killed, including Drum O’Leary, who was felled by a single blow and sank to the bottom of the ocean with his ship.
Few prisoners were taken—just four men and one woman—and in no time at all the naval captain of the ship Cassandra was taken on to realised he had captured a valuable prize indeed. Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter had a price on her head large enough to make it worth his while taking her back to England.
The tale, which had become exaggerated with the telling—of how she had cocked a snook at the Admiralty and stolen her father’s ship from under their noses, and cut down his corpse from the gallows at Execution Dock before one tide had washed over it, let alone three—had given her a larger-than-life image and inspired awe and admiration in many.
It had also inspired a certain amount of envy. Because it was a woman who had committed these crimes and had escaped from the laws and conventions that governed their own lives and sailed away to live on sun-drenched shores, it made some people inclined to forget that pirates were ruthless barbarians.
Being a woman—and a beautiful one, as rumour had it—she did not conform to the popular image people had regarding pirates. The drama had created avid interest among the public at large—and caused acute embarrassment to the Admiralty. The fascination and magical aura of Nathaniel Wylde, which had captivated the public during his time as a searover, had been transferred to his daughter—a woman the lords of the Admiralty were determined to capture and see hanged from the same gallows as her father before her.
On reaching London, Cassandra was taken to Newgate prison. It was a new prison, only recently completed; the old Newgate had burned down in the great fire of ’66. Its outward appearance was splendid, but the sumptuousness of the outside did not signify that its interior was as grand. Here misery and pain went hand in hand.
Cassandra lived in a perpetual state of numbness, showing not the slightest emotion. She was put in a dark, underground cell, one that was usually reserved for murderers and other serious offenders. It was stink
ing and filthy and infested with vermin—rats, black rats, their eyes shining bright when they caught the light of the single tallow candle, which burned in her cell.
Heavily shackled, so fatigued was she that she collapsed on to a pile of filthy straw and slept the sleep of the dead, utterly confounding her jailers. But when she emerged from the mists of sleep hours later, memories returned to torment her with a cruel vengeance, and she was plunged into a world of hell.
Cassandra had been incarcerated in Newgate prison for two weeks when Stuart arrived back in London with the convoy, unaware of the fate that had befallen his wife. The Sea Hawk was carefully manoeuvred up against the quay before a noisy and colourful crowd of people that had come to welcome them home, a familiar enough sight when any convoy of ships returned from east or west.
After seeing to the unloading of the cargo, Stuart left the Sea Hawk for the last time—it now belonged to the Wheatley and Roe Mercantile Company—and went immediately to his house in Bloomsbury, eager to see his mother.
He had not been at home long when a footman admitted an extremely agitated James Randell into the hall. Curious as to what could be so important to bring James to his home when he had parted company from him just a short while ago, Stuart excused himself to his mother and took James into a small anteroom.
Refusing Stuart’s offer of refreshment, James came straight to the point, aware that what he had to disclose was too important to keep from Stuart a moment longer. ‘Forgive my intrusion, Stuart, but after speaking to an acquaintance of mine at the Admiralty, what I have to tell you is grave news indeed and cannot wait.’
Stuart frowned, a feeling of doom invading his whole being as he looked at James, whose normally placid face was drawn with tension.
‘What is it, James?’
‘It—it concerns your wife.’
Stuart became motionless, as if turned to stone. ‘Go on.’
‘It appears that the Dolphin was intercepted by two naval vessels off West Africa. The Dolphin tried to outrun them and so they fired on her. After what appears to have been a fierce struggle she sank—taking almost every man on board, including her captain, Drum O’Leary, with her.’
Stuart stared at him hard, and for an instant everything seemed to go dark around him as James haltingly explained the circumstances leading up to the sinking of the pirate ship. All the blood drained out of his face as he steeled himself to ask the question that exploded and almost shattered his mind.
‘And Cassandra—my wife? Are you telling me she is dead?’
‘No. She survived and was brought back to London.’
Relief swamped Stuart, but it was short lived. When he thought of the fate that awaited her, then he could not help thinking that perhaps it would have been merciful if she had gone down with the ship.
‘Where is she? What have they done with her?’
‘She is in Newgate, awaiting trial. Owing to the fact that she is Nathaniel Wylde’s daughter, a great deal of public interest has been aroused already—and because of it the Admiralty wants it over and done with as quickly as possible.’
Other than a tightening of Stuart’s jaw, he gave no visible reaction to this staggering news. Striding to the window, he stared out, his eyes filled with a scolding rage, his stance like that of a man who was being stretched on the rack. He could see nothing but Cassandra as she’d looked on the Sea Hawk—courageous, proud and lovely when she’d confronted O’Leary, and the look in her eyes when she’d confessed her love. A spasm of pain tore through him at the thought of her having to endure the horrendous conditions of Newgate prison, with nothing at the end of it but the gallows.
‘So,’ he said at length, ‘it would seem she has been condemned without a hearing. She has automatically been found guilty and her trial will be a foregone conclusion.’
‘Unfortunately, it certainly looks that way. Already the lawyers and the lords of the Admiralty are preparing their case—although it would seem there are few, if any, witnesses for them to interview. This may stand in her favour. They can find no merchants who can testify that she took part in any of the raids Wylde or O’Leary carried out on their ships.’
‘Is she allowed any legal representation?’
‘No. I do not believe so.’
‘I must go to her immediately. I must see her,’ Stuart said with a note of urgency in his voice. ‘Thank you, James, for bringing me this news. I know I can be assured of your secrecy on this matter. It is imperative that for the present any connection between myself and Cassandra is not made public.’
‘You have my word on it, Stuart—although I cannot speak for the rest of the crew.’
‘I realise that—but with any luck, after leaving the ship they will all have fallen into the nearest taverns and will be drunk out of their skulls for a week at least.’
When James had left the house Stuart stood for a long time, thinking of Cassandra, hoping to God she hadn’t been hurt. What he saw in his mind was his last image of her—the wrenching look on her face. The memory of that haunted him. It tore at him, along with other worries about her. Over the weeks since their parting he’d tortured himself constantly, wondering how she was. He had tried to put her out of his mind before he went insane—even then she had invaded his every waking thought.
It suddenly occurred to him that she was going to need all the help he could give to get her through this, and to keep the Admiralty from badgering her and charging her with collusion just to terrify her into admitting things that weren’t true. A sense of urgency banished the defeated despair that had clouded his thinking since their parting, and his mind began to work furiously.
Making his excuses to his mother, he left. An hour later, after lining the turnkey’s pocket with a generous purse, Stuart was admitted to Newgate Gaol.
Never had Cassandra thought London could possess an establishment as grim and hideous as Newgate Gaol—a habitation of violence and absolute wretchedness. Alone in her cell, the walls running with water and slime, she was acutely aware of the sounds of the prison above, below and on all sides of her—of screams and groans, the rattling of chains and even laughter, which sounded quite bizarre to her ears.
The stench of centuries of rot was appalling and made her feel sick, giving her no appetite for the stale prison food her gaoler brought her—although of late she had reason to believe her sickness was caused by something other than the unappetising prison food: she was certain that she was carrying Stuart’s child. At any other time she would have reason to rejoice, but with death looming ever closer the only emotion it inspired within her heart was one of dread.
After a few days she was allowed to leave her solitary cell and mingle with the other inmates of the prison—a curious mixture of felons and debtors, whores and cut-throats and the like, and, because of her exploits, she had already acquired a certain popularity. But she remained as distant from everyone as it was possible to do in the overcrowded prison as she awaited her fate with a courage that deceived everyone but herself.
Her wrists and feet were still shackled and sore but, thankfully, they were not so uncomfortable that she was unable to move around the women’s ward where she was housed. In the confused chaos she lived each day in an atmosphere of foetid corruption, where every kind of wickedness and vice flourished. She soon realised that everything had a price and that existence within this grim establishment could be eased somewhat if a person had money. And so it was with reluctance that she sold a gold ring to the greedy gaoler for a meagre sixteen shillings.
It had been a gift from her cousin Meredith on her eighteenth birthday and was worth ten times that much, but she did not expect to live beyond her days spent in Newgate so she might as well see them out with what little comfort could be bought. Besides, there were people who would slit her throat while she slept for being in possession of less.
She took little comfort from her appearance. Not since the Dolphin had sunk had she had enough water with which to wash herself properly. Her clot
hes were filthy, her body and hair were filthy, and like everyone else in this miserable place she was infested with lice. In fact, she looked no different from all the other miscreants who inhabited Newgate.
Keeping herself aloof from the other prisoners, she was constantly worried about her child since gaol fever was always present. The death rate was high and babies born in Newgate rarely survived in the foetid atmosphere for long. There was an ample supply of alcohol within the prison and gambling and prostitution were routine. People came and went all the time for there was no restriction put on visitors or whole families of the prisoners’ entering, providing they offered a generous purse to the turnkey.
One day the warder brought Cassandra a bundle that had been delivered to the prison by Meredith. It was accompanied by a letter begging her forgiveness, for Meredith had neither the desire nor the courage to enter Newgate Gaol. She expressed her shock and grief on learning of Cassandra’s incarceration in such a dreadful place, and she would pray constantly that she would be shown mercy and exonerated from all charges brought against her.
Cassandra expressed a feeling of guilt and self-reproach at her utter disregard for Meredith’s feelings in the past, and as she looked sadly back at her life—to the time when she had suffered such harsh treatment at the hands of her aunt and uncle—she realised that Meredith had always been there for her. Meredith had deserved better from her. She should never have gone off to Barbados the way she had, without a word, without a thought, even—just a brief note.
The bundle contained some much-needed clothes, and Cassandra could not suppress a smile for, true to Meredith’s character, they were warm and practical. There was also a large woollen shawl, for which she was especially grateful—not only because the prison could be so very cold at night, but also because it would help conceal her steadily thickening waistline.
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