by M. M. Kaye
Hero said, aghast: “But—but today is only the eighteenth!”
“Nineteenth. You’ve missed one.”
“You mean I may have to stay on this ship for another ten days? But I can’t! I won’t. This is ridiculous! You must see—”
She checked herself with an effort, aware that it was she who was being ridiculous, and struggling to regain her composure said stiffly: “I must apologize. What I should have said was that I fully realize how inconvenient it may be for you to proceed direct to Zanzibar, but I will see to it that you are not the loser. You can be sure that any financial loss you may incur will be made good, either by myself or by my relations.”
“I doubt it,” said the Englishman, and laughed again as though at some private joke. “Not on this occasion, at all events. I admit it’s bad luck on your relations, but I expect they’ll survive the shock. And you can always console yourself with the thought of how delighted they will be to have you restored to them, alive and well.”
Hero’s chin lifted dangerously and once again she had to struggle against a rising anger; but she contrived to suppress it and say civilly enough: “I guess you think I cannot carry out such a promise, but I can. My uncle, Mr Hollis, is the American Consul in Zanzibar, and my cousin Josiah Crayne owns the Crayne Line Clippers; which should serve to convince you that you will lose nothing by conveying me to Zanzibar with the least possible delay.”
“Well, well!” grinned the Captain. “So you’re Miss Hollis, are you? I can’t say your uncle is a personal friend of mine, but at least we know each other by sight. I heard that he had a niece coming out to visit him, though I didn’t imagine I’d ever meet her.”
“Then you will?” began Hero, but was interrupted by the arrival of a tall Arab wearing a white cotton kanzu and carrying a copper bowl and some lengths of clean linen. The bowl proved to contain a curious aromatic mixture that looked as though it were made of crushed herbs, and further conversation was abandoned while the Captain ladled a quantity of it on to a folded square of linen, applied it to Miss Hollis’s eye, and tied it in place with another strip of material—
“How does that feel?”
“Better, I think,” said Hero doubtfully. “Except that you’ve tied my hair into it.”
“It was difficult not to. I’ll have to lend you a comb and a brush. Or better still, a pair of shears. Now let’s have a look at your hands.”
He examined her scraped knuckles and blistered palms, and said: “They’ll heal clean in a day or two; salt water is a great purifier. I’ll tell Batty to give you some ointment for those knuckles. And find you a comb.”
He turned away with the obvious intention of leaving the cabin, but Hero was not so easily put off. She said quickly: “That is very kind of you; a comb will be most welcome. But about that other matter we were discussing: is it settled that we make immediately for Zanzibar?”
The Englishman paused and looked back at her over his shoulder with complete disinterest. “No, Miss Hollis. It is not I am sorry to disoblige a lady, but I’m afraid it is not possible for me to abandon my present plans in order to speed your restoration to the bosom of your family. And in any case I couldn’t get you there in time to prevent Captain Fullbright breaking the sad news of your tragic end, so a few more days of mourning are not going to hurt them.”
“But I have just told you that you will be paid for your trouble, and I can assure you that I am not in the habit of making promises that I cannot keep.”
“And neither am I in the habit of altering my plans. Miss Hollis.”
“Except, I suppose,” retorted Hero, exasperated, “to suit yourself.”
“Of course: and on this occasion it does not happen to suit me. But you may rest assured that we shall do our best to make your stay on board comfortable, and if it’s any consolation to you, the delay will at least give your looks a chance to improve before we reach Zanzibar. For if your loving relatives were to see you at this moment the odds are that they wouldn’t even recognize you—much less own you!”
He grinned unfeelingly and departed, shutting the cabin door behind him and leaving his involuntary guest a prey to unprofitable emotions; not the least of which was wounded vanity.
Even her detractors could never have accused Hero Hollis of being vain of her looks. But she had become accustomed to hearing herself referred to as a ‘beauty,’ a ‘goddess,’ or a ‘damned handsome young woman,’ and until this morning had seen nothing in her looking-glass to contradict any of these statements. It was somehow deeply humiliating to discover that in the eyes of this obstructive and unsympathetic Englishman she must appear not only unsightly but positively grotesque. And the fact that he looked upon this as a matter for jest added a final touch of indignity to the whole undignified and deplorable situation.
Hero could only regret that she had been led to thank the man for saving her life, because now that she came to think of it she was not at all sure that the dreadful episode of her fall from the deck of the Norah Crayne—not to mention her present predicament and her damaged looks—could not be written down to his account. It was his inability to handle his ship in a storm that had resulted in the Norah Crayne being forced into a cross sea, and but for that she, Hero, would never have been swept overboard, or sustained these disfiguring injuries. Therefore the very least he could do to atone for all this was to take her to Zanzibar without delay. What did his own selfish private concerns matter when compared with the grief and despair that Aunt Abby and Cressy would be enduring? The anguish of poor Clayton, who would think her lost for ever, and the remorse of Amelia Fullbright? The thought that their sufferings were now to be unnecessarily prolonged, and by the very man whose criminal lack of seamanship had caused them, was insupportable.
“There y’are, miss,” said Mr Potter, breaking in upon her angry musing. He deposited a brush and comb, the promised ointment and a pair of scissors on the desk, and remarked affably that if there was anything else she fancied she had only to give a shout and Jumah would attend to it: “You just tell ‘im what you wants, for ‘e speaks the King’s English as good as I does, and I can’t come ‘opping in and out meself. It’s still all ‘ands to make-and-mend, for the pore ole bitch got a fair batterin’ in that storm.”
“The poor old…?”
“The ship. The Virago, Fair catched it, she did. Foremast gone, spars broke, ‘atches stove in—”
“The Virago?” For some reason the name seemed vaguely familiar, and Hero was wondering where she had heard it before, when a snatch of conversation returned to her: ‘He named her, so he should know.’ Captain Fullbright had said that. But…
“That’s right,” said Mr Potter. “Rum name for a ship, I’ll allow. She were the Valerian once; built special for one of them Bristol Nabobs who ‘ad a fancy to go cruising to the gorjus East—“ence them pretty little port’oles, and such. But Captain Rory changes ‘er name to the Virago, which ‘e claims is a durned sight more suited to ‘er nasty cantankerous ways. Of course ‘e were only ‘aving ‘is little joke, but I’m not saying ‘e wasn’t right at that, for there’s times she can act as spiteful as a dockside drab. Look at the way she cuts up two days ago? Mules weren’t in it! Fair got the bit between ‘er teeth she did, and—”
Hero said sharply: “Captain who? What did you say his name was?”
“The skipper? Captain Rory—Captain H’Emory Frost. An ‘oly terror, and don’t you let no one tell you different! But there’s times when the old Virago ‘as come near beating him. Two of a kind, they are. Why, once when we was off Ras-al-Had—”
But Hero was not listening to him. She was recalling with cold horror several things that Captain Fullbright had said about the owner of the Virago, Adventurer…black sheep…blackguard. ‘If there’s anything discreditable going on, you can bet your last dime that Rory Frost’s mixed up in it…’ And now she, Hero Hollis, niece of the American Consul in Zanzibar, was actually on this ruffian’s ship and in his clutches!
I
t was an appalling situation. And even as she contemplated it, a further and far more horrifying thought occurred to her: Captain Fullbright had also mentioned piracy and kidnapping. Supposing that this Captain Frost, having realized who she was, had decided to hold her for ransom? Could that be why he had refused to pursue the Norah Crayne or to set out at once for Zanzibar?
The plot of several popular novels, borrowed in recent years from the Ladies’ Lending Library, flashed through Hero’s mind and added considerably to her disquiet. Those pale eyes—how right she had been to distrust them! Yes, undoubtedly that must be what he planned to do…hold her to ransom. Why, she must seem like manna from Heaven to him! How could she have been so foolish as to tell him who she was before asking his name? For now that he knew (she had insisted on his knowing!) that she was both rich and influential, it followed that if even half the things that Captain Fullbright had said of him were true, he could not be expected to miss such a golden opportunity.
It’s my own fault! thought Hero frantically: I ought to have thought…Why didn’t I think? Why didn’t I ask for his name?
She could only put it down to the shock of those terrifying minutes in the sea and the injuries she had received while being dragged on board. But whatever the reason, the fact remained that until this moment the identity of her rescuer and the name of his ship had not seemed to her of the least importance.
6
The week that followed seemed endless to Hero, for even with her limited knowledge of the sea it soon became clear to her that the Virago was merely idling to and fro.
The Trade Wind was blowing strongly, and had they taken advantage of it they could surely have made Zanzibar in a matter of hours; or a day and a night at most. The fact that they did not do so lent weight to her suspicion that Captain Emory Frost was playing a deep game that involved threats and ransom money, and though she refrained from accusing him of it to his face, she was secretly convinced that he must be waiting for the reply to some message he had sent to her Uncle Nathaniel.
It may have been the effect of those hard, light-coloured eyes that prevented her from taxing him with it, for Miss Hollis had never been noted for guarding her tongue and was normally outspoken to a fault. But there was something about Emory Frost, quite apart from his reputation as sketched for her by Captain Fullbright, that suggested that he would be an ill man to cross swords with, and Hero curbed her impatience and concealed both her anger and her alarm. And was chafed by the necessity for doing so.
Her lacerated hands, as Captain Frost had predicted, had healed remarkably quickly, and her bruised eye and jaw soon regained then: normal proportions, though they and numerous other contusions (the majority mercifully concealed) remained shockingly discoloured. But her hair had proved a major disaster, for, impeded by stiff and exceedingly painful fingers, she had found it impossible to drag a comb through that heavy, matted mass, and losing all patience with it, she had thrust the shears into Mr Potter’s reluctant hands and commanded him to cut it off. The result of this impetuous action had been unhappy to say the least of it, for she had emerged from the operation looking, as Captain Frost had been ungallant enough to remark, “like a cross between a deck-swab and a sea urchin’.
“Why didn’t you get me to do it?” he enquired, surveying the wreckage with considerable amusement. “Uncle Batty may be an admirable lady’s maid, but he’s no barber.”
“Is Mr Potter your uncle?” asked Hero, momentarily diverted from the ruin of those magnificent chestnut tresses.
“Only by adoption. We’ve been together for a long time. I made his acquaintance a good many years ago when he was a very well known character in certain parts of London. Here, give me those shears—”
He had actually succeeded in trimming the ragged crop into some sort of order, and had told her that she would be well advised to keep it that way during her stay in the East, for although it might make her look like a cabin-boy in skirts, she would find it a deal cooler and more comfortable than a chignon. An observation that did nothing to console her for the sight of herself in the looking-glass.
Hero had always despised tears, but gazing at her reflection she had come perilously near to shedding them. What was Clayton going to think of her altered looks? Would he even recognize her? She could only hope that he would not, and she turned her back on the glass and thereafter avoided looking at herself, even though Mr Potter made her a black velvet patch to wear over her discoloured eye and assured her earnestly that she ‘didn’t look ‘arf bad.’
Mr Potter was a friendly soul, and it was not long before Hero found herself being regaled with the saga of his by no means blameless past.
His name, it appeared, was neither Batty nor Potter. But having been born out of wedlock in an attic above a pottery shop in Battersea (a borough, Hero gathered, of the City of London), and in his prime earned the proud sobriquet of ‘The Battersea Cat’ owing to a talent for breaking and entering through top-storey windows, he had adopted both. It was during this period of his fame that he had acquired the first of his two legal wives, and all might have gone well with the marriage had he not contracted a second and bigamous one with a widow in Houndsditch, and the rightful Mrs Potter discovered the fact Inflamed by equal parts of gin and jealousy she had “squeaked beef on Batty to the “Peelers’. With the result that three nights later he had been caught red-handed, sliding down a drainpipe with his pockets full of stolen property, and spent the next five years at Her Britannic Majesty’s expense.
“It was when I come out,” confided Batty, recalling those distant days in a tone of nostalgic affection, “that I marries me second—me first ‘aving snuffed it while I was doin’ time, and the widder ‘aving taken up with a bruiser. But Aggie she turns out to be a proper shrew; which just shows ‘ow you can be took in by a petticoat.”
Advancing years and several more spells in Her Majesty’s prisons had impaired his agility but done nothing, it seemed, to improve his morals, for he had apparently been engaged in burgling Captain Frost’s bedroom when the Captain had awakened and caught him at it:
“To tell you the truth,” admitted Batty with disarming candour, “I’d seen ‘im come ‘ome and I would a’ laid me ‘and to it that ‘e were drunk as a lord, or I wouldn’t ‘ave tried it! I didn’t know then that ‘e can ‘old more liquor than ‘arf a dozen Irish lightermen and still keep ‘is wits about ‘im. Sorted me out proper ‘e did, and was all for turning me over to the Peelers. But ‘e give me a swig of booze first, out of the kindness of ‘is ‘eart, and we gets to chewing the rag all friendly-like, and in the end ‘e says ‘Well, come to think of it,’ ‘e says, ‘I’m agin’ the law meself, so why should I ‘elp the barstards’ (beggin’ your pardon, miss) ‘to fill their jails?’ ‘e says. You see, ‘e was in a bit of trouble ‘imself—‘adn’t seen ‘is relations for a matter of years, and being ‘ard pressed ‘ad looked ‘em up to ask for a loan, but all ‘is uncle gives ‘im is a bed for the night providin’ ‘e gets out the werry next day and don’t come back! So we prigs anything we can lay our ‘ands on, and skips out smart, and in the morning we ships for the gorjus East.”
“Prigs—?”
“Nabs. Snitches. Removes.”
“You mean steals? Are you telling me,” demanded Hero, horrified, “that you—that Mr Frost actually assisted you to rob his uncle’s house?”
“That’s right,” confirmed Batty, pleased at what he obviously took to be commendation. “Not bad pickings, neither. All the spoons solid silver, and an ‘andful of joolry and two ‘undred and seven-five golden guineas in a safe wot a child could ‘ave broke into with a bent pin. Set us up proper it did. That were nigh on fifteen years ago, or maybe a little more, and we been together ever since. Up and down, ‘ere and there and I can’t say as I’ve ever regretted it. Though there ‘as been times when I’d ‘ave give a lot to see ole London town again…Tch, tch!”
Mr Potter drifted off into reverie, his bright, observant eyes misting with tender memories
as he remembered London fogs and London river, and the sights and smells of home.
Hero shrewdly suspected that Mr Potter’s apparent predilection for her society disguised some ulterior motive. The most likely, in her opinion, being that Captain Frost had given orders that she was to be kept occupied and under observation so that she should see nothing he did not wish her to see. Nevertheless, she was grateful for the old man’s company, since Mr Potter, as might have been expected, knew (or professed to know) a great deal about Zanzibar, and would entertain her for hours on end with fantastic stories of the island. Tall tales of witchcraft and black magic. Of sacred drums, and a disastrous drought brought about by the spells of a local chieftain who had quarrelled with the late Sultan and built himself a palace that was haunted by the ghosts of murdered slaves: “The Mwenyi Mkuu builds ‘em inter the walls alive, t’bring good luck,” explained Batty. “And kills a sight more so’s to mix the lime wiv their blood, see.”
“Oh no!” shuddered Hero, appalled. “I don’t believe it That can’t be true!”
“True as I’m sitting ‘ere. Arsk anyone!”
Hero had asked Captain Frost, who shrugged and said that he wouldn’t be surprised.
“But surely you can’t believe that they’d really do such a thing? In this century?”
“Why not? The Mwenyi Mkuu were famous witch doctors, and that’s the way their minds would work. Life is cheap to the Africans, and murder is their favourite sport. I’m quite willing to believe that there are any number of bodies built into the walls of Dunga Palace.”
“But why didn’t the Sultan stop it?”
“Seyyid Saïd? He may have made himself Sultan of Zanzibar, but the Mwenyi Mkuu were there a long while before he was. And besides, I don’t suppose he wanted to risk another three-year drought. Didn’t Batty tell you about that?”
“Yes, but…It couldn’t possibly have happened! You must know that. Or if it did, it was only a coincidence.”