After carefully navigating back through the shards, Ramiro called out to his now-skeleton crew, “Ease back on the sails, lads! There’s no rush!”
“Go after them!” a wheezing, throaty voice commanded from below. Declan Ross had somehow made it to the stairs. He leaned on the rail and knelt on the top step. Nubby came charging over to him with Anne at his heels.
“What are ya doin’?” Nubby chastised. “This isn’t a wee scratch!
You’ve got to stay in yer bed!”
“Da, listen to Nubby! You’re not well.”
Cat, Anne, and Nubby helped Declan to a bench by the helm.
“I said, go after them!” Ross exclaimed, his head rocking gently.
“Who?” Ramiro asked. “Bartholomew Thorne?”
Ross nodded.
“He’s gone mad,” Nubby said.
“Go after the Raven!” Ross muttered. “Treasure.”
“Who cares about the treasure?” Ramiro bellowed. “We’ve got a skeleton crew. He’s got a dozen ships or more!”
“It’s still my ship,” Ross said. “I’m ordering you to go after Thorne.”
“Ah, now there’s where you’re mistaken,” Ramiro said. “You let me win the duel, and I said you could use the ship, not keep it. You have to pay me if—”
Ross reached into his pocket and let a handful of green diamonds spill out onto the deck. “That ought to be enough.”
“Biscuits and gravy!” exclaimed Nubby. “Is that part . . . is that . . . ?”
Ross nodded. “Now that the ship is mine, I command you to chase Thorne.”
An ominous rumble came from the volcano a mile behind them.
The mantle of smoke and ash had spread far and wide, and they couldn’t see the end of it.
Ramiro bent down to pick up the diamonds. “Look here, Ross,” he said. “I accept your bid for the ship, but I’m a sailor and a shipbuilder.
I can sail, and I can fish. But I can’t fight a pirate like Thorne.”
“I’ll tell you what to do,” Ross said, wincing and closing his eyes.
“But, Da!” Anne was at his side.
“NO!” Everyone turned and looked at Cat. “Declan Ross, you will do no such thing. You are injured, sir, and therefore unfit for command. As the senior member of your crew, I hereby relieve you of duty.”
Declan’s face became a mask of anger. “Cat, you . . .”
“You are relieved, sir,” Cat said. “Now, with all due respect, please leave me to my command. Bartholomew Thorne is far ahead of us. I’ll need to concentrate if we’re going to catch him.”
Ross struggled to understand for a moment. Then he grinned wildly. “That’s a man, Cat. That’s a man!”
Ross closed his eyes, muttering something about “a surprise for ol’ Bart.”
Anne looked at Cat. “What does he mean by—”
Suddenly, a flash lit the sky and the looming clouds above. A thunderous blast from behind made them all jump and then look off the stern. The entire top third of the volcano blasted into the air and disintegrated. A massive, angry red inferno rose up as the Isle of Swords was consumed. Pieces of debris began to fall all around the man-of-war. One burning hunk went right through the top deck.
“Nubby,” Cat shouted. “See to it that doesn’t start a fire in the powder kegs.”
Nubby’s eyes went as big as eggs, and he charged down the steps.
Cat squinted off the stern. The ocean behind them looked strange. The others looked too. It was as if the Isle of Swords was sinking. No, not sinking. The ocean was rising.
“Ramiro,” Cat said nervously, “would you be so kind as to man the swinging bowsprit, on course due south. I think we are about to make up a little time.”
“Aye, Captain!” Ramiro yelled as he sprinted from the helm.
“Full sails!” Cat bellowed. The rest of the crew, all eighteen of them, flew into action, climbing the ratlines, pulling halyards, and raising sails.
The massive swell rolled up behind the Bruce just as the southerly prevailing wind grabbed the sails. The ship sprang forward as if shot from a cannon. The Bruce sailed after the Raven at a speed few sailors had ever experienced on a ship that size.
“He’s gaining on us, sir!” said Skellick.
“Who’s gaining on us?!” Thorne rasped. He stared off the stern, but night had fallen and all he could see were tall square sails.
“It’s Ross’s ship,” his quartermaster replied.
“Ross?” Thorne stared. “He’s dead!”
“Well, someone’s in his ship and right at our heels!”
“Crosscurrents ahead!” someone shouted as the ship rocked to its side.
Thorne looked out and saw the same wild phenomena he’d witnessed just the night before—the same perilous seas that had decimated his fleet. Of course, the men who survived were his best captains. If half of them survived, he’d have enough treasure to create his fleet. “Batten down the hatches, lads!” Thorne yelled.
“But, sir,” said Skellick, “what about Ross?”
“It’s not ROSS!!”
“Uh, sorry, Captain. What should we do concerning the ship behind us?”
“Let him come!” Thorne yelled lustily. “When we get to the other side of the crosscurrents, the fleet will turn and blow him out of the water!”
I don’t think so, Stede thought. While Thorne was busy looking at the Bruce, Stede had slipped around the side of the quarterdeck.
He ran to the port rail and grabbed an axe from a pirate climbing the ratline. “Aye!” the man said, but as he turned, Stede hit the man so hard in the jaw that the man flew off the ship and disappeared into the churning sea.
Staying low, Stede took the axe and ran across the deck to the mainmast. Then he waited.
The Raven was nearly out of the crosscurrents. Thorne checked the stern. No sign of the ship that had been following them. He stared out off the bow. They were pointed almost due south now. He lifted his spyglass and saw something white, but massive rolling swells kept getting in the way. What is that? he wondered.
“Sir, look!” Thorne turned to where his quartermaster was pointing. He watched in horror as the Spanish carrack carrying the most treasure was slammed by a wave, turned sideways, and pushed into one of the bottomless black gulfs. Another wave crashed on top of it, sealing its fate.
“Noooo!” Thorne screamed.
“Skellick,” Thorne shouted. “We don’t want to—” The mainsail on the aft mast fell from its spar. “Get the sail!” he bellowed. “Hoist the sail!” As the ship rose up on a huge wave, Thorne looked again to the south. This time, he thought he saw several white objects scattered east to west across the horizon.
Then the mainsail on the mizzenmast went down. “What is happening?!” Thorne cried out. “This is madness!”
The Raven was still able to maneuver enough to stay out of harm’s way, but just barely. In vain, the crew raced around trying to get the sail back up just as the mainsail on the foremast came down.
Stede thought it dreadfully funny how Thorne’s men scrambled to try to raise the sails. Every time they grabbed a rope, they found it had been severed and was of no use. Stede had been busy with his axe. It was too bad, Stede thought. Too bad he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the victory over Thorne. By cutting down the mainsails, Stede had crippled the ship. Still in the crosscurrents, it would no doubt be smashed to pieces and take everyone, Stede included, to the bottom of the Atlantic.
Bartholomew Thorne pushed Skellick aside and took the helm himself. He saw a giant wave coming from far to starboard. Thorne spun the wheel frantically, but without the mainsails, the ship wouldn’t respond. But just as the deadly curling wave approached the starboard side of the ship, another swell, this one mountainous and wide, drove under the Raven from behind. As this wave rolled through, the sea began to calm. It was like a great rolling pin on lumpy dough. Thorne could not believe his good fortune. He looked left and right and saw several of his ships, galleons, frigate
s, and a schooner. The great chasms had closed. The waves grew less and less. The crosscurrent was gone, and the Raven was safe.
“We’ve done it!” Thorne yelled with maniacal joy.
But before anyone else could speak, flashes lit the sea from the south. A cannonball whooshed overhead. When the last swell sank into the sea, tall masts rose up across the horizon. Each had full square sails. Thorne lifted his spyglass and saw the red cross of St.
George on flags flying high above five different ships. The British!
“Come about!” Thorne screamed. “Fire the port cannons!”
The British warships fanned out, firing at will. A cannonball crashed into the center of the main deck. One of Thorne’s men went cartwheeling into the air and overboard. Another shot blew apart a cannon bay belowdecks. Still another struck the stern.
Stede had hidden himself under a tarp when the shooting started. The last cannonball had gone right over his head. I think it b’ about time for me to leave, Stede thought. He sprinted through the men scattering on the deck and found what he needed. He took his axe and cut the two lines that secured a small rowboat. As it fell, he dove in and rode it the rest of the way to the water.
“The British?” Nubby yelled. “Where did they come from?”
Declan Ross opened his eyes briefly and began to laugh.
Cat closed on the Raven’s stern and then gave the order, “Fire starboard cannons!” There were only ten men on the gun deck, so they could only fire a few of the cannons. But it was enough.
Thorne watched with horror as Ross’s ship appeared behind the Raven. “Fire the chasers!” he yelled, referring to the two cannons he had on the stern just above the waterline. The command came too late. The Bruce fired, missing with two shots, but the third tore violently into the back of the Raven. The poop deck and the rear cabins exploded, and debris showered the quarterdeck and the helm.
With the explosion, Bartholomew Thorne had fallen to his knees.
He stood now and looked at the back of his ship. The rear cabins, including his captain’s quarters, had been ravaged by the cannonball and, in its aftermath, the fires. Nothing remained of his quarters.
The fires once again had taken his Heather away.
When the HMS Oxford drifted alongside of the Raven, the British met little resistance. Thorne’s crew had been thinned by their experiences at sea and on the Isle of Swords. And many had died during the battle. Commodore Blake found Bartholomew Thorne at the helm, his hands on the ship’s wheel. He stood as if frozen, even as Blake’s men surrounded him.
And discarded at Thorne’s feet, the infamous bleeding stick lay soaking in a puddle of seawater. Blake lifted the stave from the deck and held it up as if it were a scorpion. Water droplets, tinged with crimson, ran off the ends of the spikes.
Blake looked at it, his face a mask of disgust.
When Thorne looked upon his bleeding stick, a chilling, dark smile curled at the corner of his mouth. Blake saw in the vanquished captain’s glare a murderous cunning so black and ruthless that he stepped backward a pace. Then Blake turned and, with a mighty heave, hurled Thorne’s weapon far out into the ocean.
“All secure?” Commodore Blake asked, referring to the other ships from Thorne’s decimated fleet.
“We can’t be sure, sir,” said Mr. Jordan. “Some of Thorne’s vessels may have come out of the crosscurrents far from where we intercepted the Raven. But of the ships we engaged, only one got away.”
“What?” said Blake. “How?”
“The schooner, sir,” said Mr. Jordan. “Its sails were down. We thought it dead in the water. But when we boarded the Raven, the sails on the schooner flew up. It caught the wind and fled. The King Richard and the Triumph opened fire, but . . . missed.”
Blake nodded. Bartholomew Thorne had been captured, and that’s all that mattered for now.
“What about Ross?” Sir Nigel asked. They turned and stared across the waves to the Bruce. “We can’t just let him go.”
“I don’t see anyone else out there,” said Commodore Blake.
“Do you, Mister Jordan?”
“No, sir,” he replied. “No one at all.”
49
GHOSTS OF THE PAST
Three weeks had passed since Commodore Blake’s fleet sailed for the British fort at New Providence. Bartholomew Thorne and his remaining crew would there await trial and, eventually . . . the gallows. The Robert Bruce made sail for Scotland and Ross’s beloved Edinburgh. There, Ross and Jacques St. Pierre convalesced under Nubby’s care in a small manor home. To pass the time, Anne took Cat to see the sights all over the city. Ramiro had been itching to get back to his shipyard in Sines, but waited until he was convinced Ross was out of the woods to depart. He left the Bruce with its new owner and chartered a schooner to Portugal.
“I’ve got to go out,” Ross said one day. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and began to stand.
“You just lay yourself back down!” Nubby commanded. “Or I’ll fetch my spoon!”
“I’m well, Nubs,” he said. “And a nice meat pie from
O’Lordan’s—that would do me right. Besides, you let Jacques go out a week back.”
“But he wasn’t hurt near as bad as you.”
“Nubs, he was almost blown to bits.” Ross put a hand on Nubby’s shoulder. “Really . . . I’m fine. And I’ll just be gone for a little while.”
Nubby shrugged. He knew his captain would go with or without permission.
“Thanks,” Ross said. He dressed warmly and left the manor home. A cool mist drifted over the cobblestone streets and between the crowded buildings. With some urgency in his step, Ross turned a corner and strode up a hill . . . right past O’Lordan’s.
At last he found the gate he was looking for and passed under a wrought-iron arch into a vast cemetery. Trees flourished among the tombstones. She always loved the trees, Ross thought as he meandered among the plots.
Then he saw it. The sight of her gravestone constricted Ross’s chest. He coughed, and tears trickled into the creases near his eyes.
He knelt in a patch of ferns and laid his head against the stone. “I know what Thorne did, Abigail,” Ross said, rubbing his fingers along the engraved contours of her name. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to stop him . . . then. The British have him now. And he’ll hang for sure.”
He wept quietly for some time, and it seemed years of anguish flowed out of him. The tears eventually began to dry. He lifted his head a little and said, “Anne’s well. She has your spirit . . . and your beauty. But she has far too much of my love of the sea in her. I tried, Abigail . . . and we were so close to treasure that would have freed us. But what little I salvaged won’t be enough. And the British took the rest. Abigail, . . . ,” he hesitated, “I must still remain a pirate.”
“Now where’d ya get a fool idea like that, mon?” came a voice from behind.
“Stede?” Ross turned and leaped to his feet.
Three figures stood atop the hill above Ross. It was hard to see their faces, for the mist swirled among them. But one of the shadowy beings stood a foot or more taller than the other two. “We just made port,” came a deep voice from the giant.
Ross ran to them. “Stede,” he cried. “Jules, Red Eye! By the grace of the Almighty, you . . . you’re alive!” He embraced them each in turn and then backed away. “How?”
“Thorne put me on a schooner,” said Red Eye, a mischievous smile curling. “And see, me and the captain of the vessel had a bit of a quarrel. It seems after the crosscurrents, the crewmen began to disappear one by one. I found old Stede here in nothing but a rowboat.”
“It b’ a good thing ya picked me up!” said Stede. “Or the British would have put ya on the bottom!”
“Jules?” Ross cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to you?”
“Thanks to a few of Thorne’s former slaves,” Jules replied in his thunderous voice, “I managed to commandeer a ship. Near as I can tell, we came out of the crossc
urrents miles from everyone else.”
Stede laughed. “With the British firin’ on us, we b’ haulin’ out of there as fast as the wind would take us. We b’ not knowin’ what happened with the Bruce. So, thinkin’ ya might head back to Portugal with Ramiro, we sailed there. Jules and his crew b’ havin’ the same idea. We met there and figured b’fore we sail back to the
Spanish Main, we might take a look in Edinburgh. Glad we did!
When we saw the Bruce, we came close to swimmin’ to shore.”
Declan Ross clasped his men in turn on the shoulder. “I can’t tell you how much joy you’ve brought me.”
“And more b’sides,” said Stede. “There’ll b’ no need for any of us to remain pirates a day longer. The two ships we took from Thorne, they b’ plenty heavy with treasure.”
Ross eyed the three men. “How soon can you be ready to set sail?”
“What ya b’ thinkin’, ya outrageous mon?”
Ross nodded. “Saint Celestine, gentlemen. The treasure belongs to the monks, after all.” Stede, Jules, and Red Eye exchanged worried glances.
Ross grinned. “Though I expect when Cat shows the monks what he brought back from the Isle of Swords, they’ll happily part with enough to meet our needs.”
50
THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION
A few months later, Commodore Blake ushered nine monks into the cavernous receiving room of his hilltop estate.
“Father Gregory,” Blake said with a humble bow. “Welcome to
New Providence.”
“Thank you, Commodore,” the monk replied, lowering his hood. The other eight kept their faces cloaked. “You are kind to provide our passage here.”
“I must admit I was intrigued when I received your letter,” said Blake. “But I suppose Ross and his crew decided against joining us in this meeting after all.”
At that, seven of the monks let their hooded robes fall to the floor. And there before Commodore Blake stood Declan Ross in a new hunter-green kilt, his daughter, Anne, uncomfortable in an elegant evening dress, Jacques St. Pierre attired more or less like the King of France, and Stede, Red Eye, Jules, and Cat. “I stand corrected. I am pleased you were able to make it,” Blake said,