Masking her outrage with a cool smile of her own, she went on, “It does sound like an ideal partnership for you Mr. Northrup. For my own part, I see no possible advantage to my entertaining your offer.”
“Ah, but I disagree. You see, Miss Davenport, I just happen to have laid hands upon a certain document I believe you might find of interest.”
“What could you possibly have that might prove of any interest to—”
She broke off as Malcolm straightened from his casual pose against the door frame and, with an infuriating smile, reached into his jacket. He withdrew a folded sheet of familiar-looking paper, which he dangled before her.
“—to you, Miss Davenport?” he softly finished her question. “Indeed, it just happens that I have in my possession the coordinates to your late father's so-called Atlantis site.”
“Let me see that!”
Instinctively, Halia made as if to snatch the page from his hand. Malcolm was swifter than she, however, moving out of reach so that her fingers closed upon air.
“Not so fast, luv,” he lightly chided and tucked the paper back in his pocket. “You'll see it after you've agreed to my terms...namely, that I provide the coordinates, you do all the work of recovering the treasure, and we split the profits fifty-fifty.”
“But, that is a ludicrous notion,” she choked out. “Why should I give half to you when you propose to do none of the work? Besides which, such a find will be of untold historical significance. Each item must be thoroughly documented and then turned over to a scientific institute or a museum, not bartered about on the open market.”
“A noble sentiment, Miss Davenport, but hardly a practical one. We both know that you could spend weeks, or months, or even a lifetime searching the Caribbean and still come up empty-handed. With these coordinates”—he lightly tapped his breast pocket—“you can make your way straight to the site and begin recovering artifacts almost immediately. The arrangement is more than generous,” he added, echoing the sentiment she had expressed to him a few days before.
Hearing her own words turned against her, Halia bit her lip in silent frustration. Why should she believe that Malcolm had the missing page from Arvin Davenport's journal, when he had made a career of duping the unwitting with similar schemes? She herself had told him that the pertinent page had been stolen. It would have been a simple feat for the Englishman to obtain a similar volume and tear a page from it, then make her believe it was the document she sought.
But someone had stolen the document, she reminded herself. Some unknown person had crept into her home and boldly torn a leaf from the book, and then vanished with it into the night. Who better to point to as suspect in such a crime than an admitted confidence man?
“But why make me such an offer?” she finally countered, seizing upon the most telling argument. “If those are the genuine coordinates, as you claim, why don't you simply fund your own expedition? Then, everything you find would be yours alone.”
Malcolm lifted a wry brow. “But you already know the answer to that, luv. I don't propose to do any of the work, merely reap the benefits of your expertise. That is why I am willing to settle for half the treasure...as should you.”
And half would be better than none, she reluctantly conceded... assuming, of course, that the page he'd showed her was the missing entry from her father's journal. And perhaps once Malcolm realized the immense importance of uncovering Atlantean artifacts, he might be persuaded to abandon his selfish notions and allow someone other than himself to benefit from his actions.
“Very well, Mr. Northrup,” she finally ventured, “let us suppose I am willing to consider your offer. Surely it is only fair that I be allowed to examine the document and determine for myself whether or not it is authentic before I agree to your terms?”
“You can look at it all day, luv...that is, once we reach Bimini. I'm not about to hand over my trump card until I'm standing on terra firma again. Give it to you now, and I'd likely find myself tossed overboard by your loyal servants,” he said with a wry glance over at Lally.
The older woman, who had been following their exchange in watchful silence, gave a wordless sound of disdain. Halia bit back a snide retort of her own, for the notion of Lally ruthlessly shoving Malcolm over the ship's railing was satisfying, to be sure.
Instead, she replied, “Then let us strike a preliminary agreement. You shall keep your distance until we disembark at Alice Town, where you will then show me the page you are carrying with you. If I declare the document to be a forgery, we will part company and you will leave the islands on the next boat.”
He nodded. “And if you agree that the page did indeed come from your father's journal, in exchange for its return, you will take me on as your partner in the Atlantis expedition. It sounds like an equitable deal to me, Miss Davenport. So now, do I have your hand...and your word on it?”
She hesitated, staring at the gloved hand he offered. Surely there could be no harm in this bargain. It would be too much the coincidence for him, of all people, to possess the one document she needed. This had to be another ploy on his part, a cruel game such as those he had played upon countless other victims in the past. By agreeing to his terms, she would at least buy herself a few days of peace on this journey.
“Very well, sir,” she replied and took his hand.
This time, she was prepared for his touch, so that the pressure of his fingers against hers sent only the slightest of shivers through her.
The smile Malcolm gave her as their hands separated hinted at the cool satisfaction of a man who believed he had gotten the better part. His tone, however, was bland when he said, “Then I shall bid you a pleasant journey, Miss Davenport, until we dock in Bimini.”
~ Chapter 9 ~
It was as if they were gliding across a vast expanse of green and blue mottled glass, Malcolm thought, in something akin to awe.
Dressed in a dark gray morning suit and stiff-collared shirt and wearing his straw boater, he was seated in the stern of the skiff ferrying him and Halia from the Retribution. That ship lay anchored within the shallow, eastward-facing harbor formed by the C-shaped sprawl of Bimini's main islands. That vessel would remain there for the next few hours until the exchange of goods and supplies with the locals concluded.
Half an hour before, Lally and Wilkie—neither trusting the other to handle matters properly—already had set off with the luggage in another, larger boat. The rest of the passengers were bound for other destinations, and he and Halia were the last to put ashore.
It had been just after sunrise when the Retribution had begun crossing the fifty-mile wide strip of gray-blue water off Florida's southwestern coast that was part of the Gulf Stream. A misty dawn had clung to an austere sea quite devoid of welcome. Even when the sun finally burnt off the fog to reveal a sky of so blue a hue that it might have been taken from an artist's canvas, Malcolm was not impressed. He had remained that way for the next few hours until finally a sliver of land, riding low in the water, appeared upon the horizon.
From a distance, the island's green and white vista had appeared pleasant enough, if not the lush Eden he might have imagined it would be. As they drew closer and the water grew clearer and bluer, he realized that it was the surrounding sea that gave the place its beauty.
Now, he clung to the side of their single-sailed, flat-hulled boat as their guide, a taciturn Bimini Islander with skin the color of obsidian, expertly maneuvered them across the shallow reef. Their ultimate destination, he understood to be a point just to the north of the port city of Alice Town, where Halia had obtained a house for the duration of their stay.
By degrees, Malcolm allowed himself to relax. This was the part of any sea voyage that he usually dreaded. To his mind, only a bloody idiot could claim to enjoy bouncing about the waves in a teacup of a boat that was liable to sink at any moment. For once, however, he found himself almost at ease upon the ocean—not relishing the trip, mind you, but not in fear of his life.
For nev
er had he seen so clear and peaceful a body of water.
Perversely, the sight also called to mind his London childhood. He had spent many of those years near the Thames—a muddy, garbage-strewn twist of river whose stench could fair knock a strong man to his knees. That alone would have been sufficient to give him a dislike of the water. A terrifying crossing over a storm-raked channel when he was but half-grown had instilled a permanent distaste for sea travel.
But this...this molten jewel of a sea, so clear that he could see straight down to the sparkling white sand far below, could pick out bright flashes of color that were tiny, impossibly-hued fish... this held an allure from which even he was not immune.
Then a flicker of movement beneath the glasslike green waves caught his attention. He leaned closer to the water's edge, then abruptly drew back and swallowed hard. A dozen or so feet below the water's surface, a shadowy figure half again as long as a man was tall had just swum directly beneath their boat.
A bloody shark!
Or was it? He'd never seen a live shark before. The nearest he had come to such an encounter was passing the sign outside a particular London waterfront tavern known as the Shark's Tooth. That lurid placard depicted a smiling hammerhead making a feast of a luckless sailor, hardly a pleasant image.
“Quite a sight, is it not?” Halia's voice drifted to him with the warm sea breeze, the first words she had spoken since they'd left the Retribution.
Malcolm started. Then, realizing it was to the scenery at large, rather than to that unknown sea creature that she referred, he weakly nodded. The tone of disdain that she normally employed when addressing him had vanished, he noted in some surprise. Rather, it was replaced by a note of almost joyous satisfaction. Thoughts of the shark shoved from his mind, Malcolm turned his attention from the sea to the young woman who would soon be making him his latest fortune.
She sat beside him, her broad-brimmed hat forgotten in her lap and a worn carpetbag propped on her knees, her face turned to catch the ocean spray. Dressed in a crisp yellow skirt and matching jacket, with wisps of blond hair playing about her face like sea foam, she appeared perfectly at home atop the gentle swell of waves. An expression akin to anticipation played across her delicately chiseled features.
As if she were awaiting a long-lost lover, Malcolm decided in a lapse into unaccustomed fancy.
The notion triggered a sudden, urgent ache within his loins that took him by surprise.
Keep your mind on bloody business, my lad, he silently warned himself. If there was one thing he'd learned in his long and successful career as a con man, it was never to let a bit of muslin distract him from the goal at hand. Mastering his unwanted reaction, he sought refuge in the mundane.
“It's a pleasant enough view, I suppose,” he conceded with a gesture toward the approaching shore. “Perhaps you should tell me a bit about the place, since we will be making it our home for some time.”
Halia's green eyes—their color so like the dancing waves—locked on his, her expression of anticipation replaced by angry resignation.
“Whether or not you stay remains to be seen. But perhaps it would do you well to know something about the islands, at that.”
She settled back against the boat's edge, her gaze once more turned to the shore. A hint of irritation still evident in her tone, she began, “The Bimini Islands are, as you know, part of the Bahamas. They consist of two main islands and several small cays”—she pronounced that last word as “keys”—“but cover barely ten square miles, in all. The islands were officially discovered by the Europeans approximately four hundred years ago, as part of their colonization of the New World.”
“Ah, yes, that Columbus fellow,” Malcolm murmured.
Halia ignored the interruption. “The Spaniards came first, followed later by the English, who actually began settling here under charter. It was during that first colonization that the islands also became home to brutal privateers and smugglers...people of your own sort, Mr. Northrup,” came her cool aside.
She was closer to being correct than she might have expected. When Malcolm only shrugged, however, she resumed her lecturing tone.
“These pirates found the islands an ideal spot from which to plunder merchant ships traveling between Europe and the Americas. They soon became a scourge with which to reckon, those pirates of the Caribbean. The English finally put a stop to it early in the previous century, but another equal evil continued to flourish.”
“Slavery,” Malcolm finished for her, with a sidling look at their dark-skinned oarsman. That man, however, appeared to be paying no heed to this history lesson but silently guided the craft past a floating clump of yellow gulf weed.
Halia soberly nodded. “Slavery was common in the West Indies for almost three centuries. Ships would arrive from West Africa on a regular basis, their holds overflowing with men, women, and children brutally torn from their homelands to work the cane fields. That shameful practice continued until fifty or so years ago, when the English passed the Emancipation Act.”
“Several decades ahead of you colonials,” he pointed out when she paused for breath.
She gave a grudging nod at the truth of that last and went on, “Once freed, the greatest number of those former slaves elected to remain in the West Indies...some on the land that their former masters deeded to them. Others roamed throughout the Bahamas and settled on various other islands. They later were joined by escaped American slaves who were seeking sanctuary outside the United States while our own war for freedom raged on. Now, almost six hundred people—black and white—live here in the Biminis.”
“Quite interesting,” Malcolm drawled in a tone to imply the opposite, “but what about your Atlantis theory? Where do your wandering Greeks fit in here?”
“I am getting to that.”
She plopped her hat back on and tied its white ribbons beneath her chin. “The islands' earliest settlers were South American Indians—the Lucayans, to be exact—who may have inhabited the islands as much as five hundred years earlier than the Spaniards' first arrival...approximately 1000 a.d., if you have some difficulty with the arithmetic, Mr. Northrup. But if my father's theory is correct, a flourishing civilization had established itself here at the far reaches of the Atlantic thirty-five hundred years earlier than even that.”
“But why travel thousands of miles from their homeland to settle here, of all places?” Malcolm asked, mildly curious, despite himself, to see where her arguments would lead.
Halia gave a dismissive wave of her hand.
“As to why the original Atlanteans left their home, I can only conjecture. Perhaps their ideas on government and technology caused them to be persecuted...or perhaps, like many peoples, they traveled far afield simply for the adventure of it all. But as to why they came here”—she paused for an encompassing gesture at the sea and rapidly approaching shore—”I would think that self-evident.”
“Defense,” he promptly guessed. “The Biminis are far enough from the mainland to be easily defended from invaders, yet close enough so that travel back and forth would be a simple affair.”
“Perhaps there is some merit in your reasoning,” she conceded, “but that is not quite what I had in mind. As surely even you must agree, the islands are beautiful and peaceful. Too, they are well-situated on the Gulf Stream so that the weather is almost always pleasant. It could be an idyllic setting, given the suitable companions.”
The faint curl to her full lips with that last remark implied that Malcolm did not number among that chosen. He had no time to reply to that unspoken insult, however, for land was upon them. The skiff sliced with knifelike ease toward a crude pier that jutted from the rocky shore.
“This be the place,” their guide spoke up for the first time as he furled the sail and made fast the lines.
He pointed to a low bluff several dozen yards beyond, atop which sat a two-storied, white clapboard house with bright yellow shutters and a flanking of ragged green palms. An inviting-looking veran
da, the sort where a man might lean back in a chair and prop his boots on the railing, stretched along both levels and overlooked the island's eastern coast.
Malcolm noted the trail of newly churned sand that led in a straight line to the house from where they stood. There, he made out several dark-skinned, brightly dressed figures all shouldering trunks and cases of various sizes and milling around an open doorway.
Not a bad spot to spend the next few weeks, Malcolm decided. Then he saw the dark-skinned man seated on a slab of rock at the foot of the bluff.
“That must be Captain Rolle,” Halia declared as the man uncoiled himself from his casual pose and moved with panther-like grace toward them.
His was the blue-black skin of unmixed African heritage, and Malcolm wondered if his parents might have been those former slaves of whom Halia had spoken. He wore a jaunty blue seaman's cap atop his close-cropped black hair, and a gold earring adorned his right lobe. He was dressed all in white, from the requisite baggy pants to the rolled-sleeved cotton shirt that stretched alarmingly over his massive biceps and chest.
Another bloody pirate, Malcolm thought with an inner groan.
Already, Halia had climbed from the skiff. Once their taciturn boatman handed her carpetbag over to her, she picked her way through the wet sand to a point beyond where the sparkling water was playfully lapping at the shore. She let her gear plop to the ground, and then held out her hand to the dark-skinned man standing before her.
“You be Miss Davenport?” he asked in the now-familiar musical cadence of the islands as he took her hand.
She nodded. “I've been looking forward to meeting you, Captain Rolle. My father was impressed with your knowledge of these waters...and I do believe he quite liked you, as well.”
“Me, I enjoyed workin' wit’ Mr. Arvin,” came the man's solemn reply. “I be sad to be hearin' dat he died.”
Malcolm heard the catch in Halia's voice as she thanked the man, and he gave a speculative frown. So she was still grieving for her father, he realized, filing that thought away for future reference. Himself, he would not have cared a bloody fig either way if his own father lived or died.
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