“Not at all. Merely because the—er—gentlemen I happened to be meeting would not have understood your presence aboard my ship. They might have taken it amiss, and so I preferred that they should be kept in ignorance. There are a good many rough characters in this part of the world, Miss Hollis, and it does not pay to take chances with them.”
“Thank you. I will remember that,” said Hero meaningly. And was both disconcerted and unreasonably annoyed when Captain Frost laughed. The Captain, she considered, laughed a great deal too much and always at the wrong things. But he was to disconcert her to an even greater extent in the next few seconds:
“That eye of yours seems to be improving,” observed the Captain, looking her over critically. “In fact, with a little luck, your relatives may even be able to recognize you when we land.”
“You mean—you mean we really are going to Zanzibar?” demanded Hero breathlessly.
“Of course we are. Did you think I had kidnapped you?”
It was so exactly what she had thought that an uncontrollable wave of colour rose from the base of her throat to the roots of her cropped hair, temporarily dimming the rainbow hues that still surrounded her left eye and drawing another shout of laughter from the Captain.
“By God, you did! Well I’ll be damned! Hi—Batty, d’ye hear that? Our super-cargo thought we were kidnapping her. It’s not such a bad idea, now I come to think of it How much do you suppose they’d pay together back?”
Mr Potter, who with the aid of a pockmarked Arab named Hadir was busy laying a much-mended sail over most of the after-deck, made a rudely derisive noise, and the Captain grinned and said regretfully: “The trouble is, of course, that no one is ever going to believe we’ve got you unless we actually produce you, so I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. You see, Miss Hollis, you’re dead: lost overboard and drowned in mid-ocean. And as everyone must know that by now, anyone who might be interested enough to pay up would think we were spinning a very tall yarn if we said we’d got you. They’d want to see you before they parted with a dollar; and at pretty close quarters too, since no one is going to recognize you at long distance at the moment—not with that hair-cut and the state your face is in. No, it’s a pity, but I’m afraid that as a money-making proposition you’re no use to us. And just to reassure you, for anything in the nature of my personal pleasures I only kidnap pretty women.”
He slapped Miss Hollis encouragingly upon the shoulder in a manner that he might have employed towards a twelve-year-old schoolboy, and remarked unforgivably that he could only hope that her relatives would be pleased to have her back.
“Why should you suppose they might not be?” snapped Hero, betrayed into rudeness. (Pretty women, indeed!)
“Well, it depends on how much they think of you, doesn’t it? The majority of my relations, for instance, would be profoundly relieved if they heard that I’d been drowned at sea, and no bells would be rung if they subsequently discovered the report to be exaggerated.”
“I cannot say I am altogether surprised,” said Hero. “I guess if I had a nephew who repaid my hospitality by stealing my property while staying as a guest in my house, I should not feel any too kindly towards him either.”
If she had expected the Captain to be abashed she was much mistaken, for he only laughed and said: “I see Batty’s been telling tales out of school. No, I don’t suppose my uncle was any too pleased about that But then I wasn’t either. In fact the whole thing was a grave disappointment, for I’d always thought the old skinflint kept a really tidy sum in that safe, and though the amount we got out of it was not to be sneezed at, it wasn’t a fraction of what I reckoned he owed me. As for my aunt’s diamonds, they turned out to be very second-rate stuff and we got little more than a hundred guineas for the lot.”
“You would appear,” said Hero frostily, “to consider theft amusing. Possibly that is an English viewpoint.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. The English have always been great ones at grabbing everything they can lay hands on and then piously pretending that they only did it for the previous owner’s good. A hypocritical lot.”
Hero’s jaw dropped in an inelegant manner and she stared at him, momentarily rendered speechless.
“Now why are you looking at me like that? Surely it’s a well-known fact?”
“But I thought you were English.”
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Your voice…the way you talk…those books. The What are you, then?”
“Myself.”
“Do you mean,” said Hero, bewildered, “that you do not know who your parents were?”
“Oh, they were English. English of the English! The Frosts were probably sitting smugly in Kent when the Romans came, and they were certainly there when the Normans landed. But that doesn’t mean the country has to own me, or that I have to owe it anything.”
“Patriotism—” began Hero, but was not permitted to continue.
“Patriotism be damned. That whole concept is merely a combination of self-interest and sentimentality. You’re an American, aren’t you?”
“And proud of it!”
“Why? The herd instinct? We mustangs are afar better lot than those vulgar pit-ponies or any horse that ever came from out of Arabia, while as for those impossible African zebras—! That sort of thing?”
“Not at all. One’s ancestors—”
“A man is not responsible for his ancestors, so why should he accept credit or shoulder blame for anything they did? Or, for that matter, be judged in advance by the fact that he happens to have been born on one side or another of some imaginary line? It’s an archaic and dangerous idea and it’s quite time it became outmoded, since it leads to a deal of trouble. People are people; black, white, yellow or brown. You either like someone or you don’t, and the bit of earth they were born on shouldn’t have anything to do with it or be allowed to influence your judgement in any way. Yet it does. You, for instance—You haven’t even laid eyes on Zanzibar, but I’m willing to bet that you’ve already made up your mind that its people are a poor ignorant lot of heathens who are probably dishonest and certainly dirty, and all in crying need of the civilizing influence of the wonderful white man. Am I right?”
“No. Yes But then one knows…”
“I can see I am. And almost every white man in the island would agree with you, though there isn’t one of them who cares a snap of the fingers for the place or its people. They are only there for what they can get out of it for themselves or their firms or their countries. Yet the place that they regard as little better than a cess-pit was old Sultan Saïd’s idea of an earthly paradise. He fell in love with it at first sight and resented every minute he had to spend away from it; and he died trying to get back to it…and made very sure he would be buried there.”
The mockery had suddenly vanished from the Captain’s voice and been replaced by an odd note of regret—or could it have been affection?—that made Hero say curiously: “Did you know him?”
“Yes. I had the luck to do him a good turn once, and he never forgot it He was an amazing man, and a great one; though he should have known better than to make treaties with Western nations. There are a good many Europeans in Zanzibar now; merchants and consuls and consular staffs of half-a-dozen different nations. Every last one of them as convinced as you are that the native population can only derive benefit from contact with their superior civilizations, and must inevitably regard them with envy and admiration.”
“But they—the Westerners—are bringing them the benefits of civilization,” insisted Hero. “Even if only by example.”
“You think so? But they are not there as missionaries. They are there for profit. And in pursuit of that noble aim they intrigue against each other with Machiavellian zeal and viciousness, while at the same time uniting to describe the natives as backward and immoral savages. Old Sultan Saïd didn’t know what he was letting himself in for when he started signing treaties with European nations!”
Hero’
s reading had not included much information on die score of Europeans in the Sultan’s territory or the reasons for their presence there, but remembering what young Jules Dubail had told her, she said on impulse: “I understand that the present Sultan, Majid-bin—er—something, is not the eldest son?”
“Majid-bin-Saïd? No. But he’s the eldest surviving son of those who were born in Zanzibar. And he won’t survive much longer if he doesn’t wake up and start cutting a few of his relatives’ throats in the near future! Which I’m afraid he won’t do, because he’s an amiable and easy-going creature—more’s the pity.”
Hero frowned and remarked with considerable acerbity that she wished he would stop saying things that he could not possibly mean.
“But I do mean it. Life is a great deal harsher in the East than you would seem to imagine, and those who want to keep their thrones have to kill or be killed. The history of Majid’s family is one long murder; and to be easy-going and incapable of knifing a rival is a great disability in Arab eyes, let me tell you! According to their reckoning, if you haven’t enough spirit to kill a man who stands in the way of something you want, then you don’t deserve to get it. They didn’t call old Sultan Saïd the ‘Lion of Oman’ for nothing.”
He laughed at Hero’s disapproving face, and said: “Do you know, you look exactly like a governess. Or a parson about to preach a sermon on Hell Fire. I’m afraid Eastern ideas are likely to come as a shock to you.”
“It is not Eastern ideas that shock me,” said Hero with emphasis. “I am naturally aware that untutored heathens are bound to hold different views from us on the subject of morality. But I cannot say the same when such views are apparently endorsed by white men.”
“Men are much the same, you know, whatever the colour of their skins. There may be more excuse for the behaviour of ‘untutored heathens,’ but that’s the best you can say about it The new Sultan is not a bad little man in many ways, and personally, I like him. But he’s weak, and that spells trouble: specially when your silly little cousin and her friends start mixing themselves up in palace politics.”
“What do you mean? What can you possibly know about my cousin or her friends?” demanded Hero, outraged.
“Only what everyone else knows. It’s a small island, and you’ll soon find that everyone there knows everyone else’s business. Your uncle is an easy-going man, but he ought to wake up to the fact that his daughter is dabbling her pretty little fingers in a keg of gunpowder.”
“I cannot help thinking,” remarked Hero in a deliberately dulcet tone, “that my uncle, as Consul, must know a great deal more about the internal affairs of the Island than you imagine. And though I do not suppose that he could teach you anything about slave trading—and whatever else you do—I feel sure that he knows quite as much about his business as you know about yours.”
“I doubt it,” said the Captain, unabashed. “I’ve drifted around this part of the world for a good many years now, and I’ve precious few illusions about it But your good uncle still cherishes a sight too many. Though I imagine even he must have lost one or two during the last year!”
“Are you personally acquainted with my uncle?” enquired Hero.
“My dear Miss Hollis—what a question! To be plain with you, he is going to be far from pleased at having his beloved niece restored to him by an untouchable like myself, because it’ll mean that he might even have to consider nodding to me in the street by way of thanks.”
“My uncle,” said Hero in an arctic voice, “will never permit his personal opinions to affect either his gratitude or his manners. He will naturally be greatly indebted to you for your part in rescuing me, and I am sure you will be suitably thanked and rewarded.”
“In cash?” enquired the Captain, amused. “I wonder what he’ll think you’re worth? Or are you imagining that he would go so far as to be seen calling at my house in order to express his gratitude in person?”
“That would be the least he could do,” said Hero with emphasis.
“My poor innocent! He wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing. And neither will he permit you to do so. I shall be lucky if I get so much as a verbal message of thanks, and even that is going to stick in his gullet like a fishbone.”
“Nonsense,” said Hero tartly. “He might not wish to call upon you—which you will allow me to say is a thing I can fully understand—but you can take my word for it that he will. Not only from gratitude, but from mere courtesy. And if he could not get there himself, he’d send Clayton—er—Mr Mayo, or even myself, to do so in his stead. We are not barbarians.”
“Poor Miss Hollis! So you really think that your relatives would permit you to call at my house even on such an errand, do you? If I know anything about your uncle he’d see me jailed first—and to hell with courtesy and gratitude! Of course, you can always try your hand at getting him to put his gratitude in writing, though I doubt if you’ll succeed. It might come in quite handy as a testimonial; and with the world getting so damned moral I may even find myself having to earn an honest living one of these days.”
“I shouldn’t think that you would know how to,” snapped Hero, unable to resist the retort.
“Possibly not.” He grinned at her and enquired unexpectedly if she were possessed of independent means, or had she to rely upon her relatives to support her?
“Because,” explained the Captain kindly, “the only thing I can think of that might sweeten the prospect of taking on a homely-looking wife with a critical disposition, a quick temper and an acid tongue, would be a large private fortune. So I hope for Mr Mayo’s sake that you have one. That is, if there is any truth in the Island rumour that you are on your way out to this outlandish spot to marry him, which I begin to doubt.”
Hero opened her mouth to retort in kind and then closed it. It had obviously been a grave mistake to engage Captain Frost in conversation, since it had merely encouraged him to be impertinent. And there being no possible reply that a lady could make to such insufferable observations, she could only turn her back on him and feign an interest in the activities of Mr Potter and Hadir until he left. She heard him laugh and walk away, but did not turn her head; continuing to stare woodenly at Mr Potter who was crooning a tuneless ditty about someone called “me bonnie brown Bess’, and staining his sail an unpleasing shade of brown with the aid of a mop and a bucketful of evil-smelling dye.
Batty’s proceedings seemed, in Hero’s jaundiced view, both messy and useless, and she was about to say as much when it occurred to her that the expanse of wet canvas sealed off the hatch more efficiently—and a great deal less obviously—than any number of bolts; and that as long as it remained there it was going to be impossible for her to discover what lay below it in the hold. Which was a disturbing thought: but not so disturbing as the two that followed close on its heels.
That strong-smelling dye—Could it be being used to disguise another smell?…the stench of shuddering, sweating, unwashed captives, jammed together in the airless dark? And was Batty Potter’s tuneless humming as innocent as it appeared, or was he doing it deliberately, to drown any untoward sounds from below?
She said breathlessly, aware that her voice was not quite steady: “Why are you doing that, Mr Potter?”
Batty looked up, blinking in the harsh sunlight: “Eh? Oh, paintin’ this ‘ere sail d’you mean? Well it’s gettin’ old, and this ‘ere muck sorter keeps it from rottin’. Preserves it, as-yer-might-say. We does it sometimes on our spare canvas. Never know when we might need an extra sail or two. Don’t let it get on your ‘ands, miss…‘so I plugs ‘im through ‘is gizzard with me bonnie Brown Bess…”
Hero abandoned the indirect approach and said flatly: “Are there negroes down there in the hold, Mr Potter?”
“Not at this time of day, miss. They’ll be cooking their prog forrard about now. “Cept for young M’bula, ‘oo’s scrubbing out the scuppers.”
“You know quite well that I was not referring to the crew. I mean slaves. Are there any slaves d
own there?”
“Now, what ever give you that idea?” wondered Batty, his brown bewhiskered face a picture of innocent reproof. “Why, ‘aven’t you ‘eard that black-birdin’ is illegal outside of ‘Is ‘Ighness the Sultan’s own territories? Slaves! Whatever next? Not that the old ‘arridan ‘asn’t carried ‘er wack of black ivory in ‘er day, but that’s all over now. We gone ‘onest, we ‘ave.”
“Then what is it that you are carrying?”
“Cargo, missie. Just cargo.”
“What sort of cargo?” persisted Hero.
“A little of this and a little of that. Ivory—the white kind—and rhino ‘oms and some bits and bobs; clockwork toys and the like wot the Sultan fancies, and a sophy and a set of chairs for ‘is Palace. Nothing that would interest you, miss. And anyways, they’re all done up in packing cases so there ain’t nothin’ to see. So now, if you’ll excuse me, miss, I shall ‘av to be getting on with me work…‘And that’s the end of ‘im, as any cove’ll guess, for she ain’t a one t’miss, is me bonnie Brown Bess!’”
The canvas had remained there all day, and on the following morning another had replaced it and been similarly treated. The schooner reeked with the smell of Batty’s dye, and although Hero had been unable to detect any suspicious noises, she was still convinced that his reason for staining those sails had nothing whatever to do with preserving them.
In which she was right. Though the reason was not what she had supposed.
7
It was her last night on board the ViragOy and once again, but this time quite openly, she had been locked into her cabin.
“Captain’s orders,” said Batty, in answer to Hero’s heated demand for explanations. And added reprovingly that “them that didn’t ask questions wouldn’t be told no lies,” and that she should stop worrying and get her beauty sleep, because they expected to fetch Zanzibar by morning.
They had evidently “fetched’ something a good deal earlier than that, for lying awake in the hot darkness Hero heard the rattle of the anchor chain and a sound that she had heard before, and recognized: a boat was being lowered and rowed away. But this time the Virago must be close to land, because she could also hear the murmur of surf breaking on a shelving beach.