Dark Torment (3 page)

She moved cautiously around the gathered men toward the far rail
of the ship, where the crowd was thinner. No one paid any attention to her, for
which she was thankful. Every eye was focused on what was happening at the
center of the crowd. The whistling sound that preceded each jolting crack was
clearly audible now, and the cracks themselves were so loud that they made her
want to flinch. And the moans that followed—Sarah no longer had any doubt
that they were made by a man: a man in agony.

Picking her way through coils of rope and dropped tools, Sarah
finally reached the rail. From there she could see a little way through the
crowd. There was still one man, a tall, thin fellow with bushy fair hair, whose
back blocked her view. As if sensing her need, he chose that moment to shift
sideways, and she saw past him. Horrified, Sarah wished he had not.

A tall, black-haired man, clad only in tattered breeches, forcibly
embraced the base of the mizzen, his hands stretched high over his head and
around the wooden pole, where the shackles linking his wrists were tied to an
iron hook set deep into the wood. He hung suspended from this restraint; only
his bare toes touched the deck. The tendons and veins in his arms bulged from
supporting his weight. Blood trickled down his arms from the iron cuffs
encircling his wrists, but those few streaks of crimson were as nothing
compared to the river that ran from the two dozen or so bloody lacerations that
marred his broad, muscular back. The skin surrounding the gashes appeared to
have been peeled from its underlying layer of muscle; strips of flesh hung from
the edges of the wounds like bits of tattered fringe amid a sea of welling
blood. The bubbling crimson gashes crisscrossed one another, underlined here
and there with the stark white of bared tendons; blood ran freely from the
gashes to soak into the man’s dingy breeches. His black hair, overlong
and soaked with sweat, was matted with blood, probably from his back. He looked
to be brutishly strong, and yet, in his current straits, pathetic. As Sarah
stared, appalled, a many-thonged leather whip with bits of metal knotted into
the ends sang through the air to land with another spine-chilling crack against
his oozing back. The victim flinched, shuddering, his head reflexively jerking
back in agony as he gave another low, guttural groan. With each lash of the
whip, blood and bits of flesh were sprayed onto the men standing closest to the
scene of the carnage: the man wielding the whip, another man, who was probably,
judging from his uniform, the captain—and her own father. Sarah felt her
stomach churn as she saw the drops of blood flecking her father’s
breeches and coat and even the white of his shirt front. She could hardly
believe that this man with his arms crossed implacably over his chest, his eyes
intent as they watched the suffering of a helpless human being, was really her
father.

The whip whistled through the air again, finding its captive
target with another sickening crack. The prisoner shuddered and groaned as
before. Sarah watched, horrified, as blood from this new set of gashes
splattered against her father’s buff-colored lapel. He didn’t turn
a hair; his attention remained fixed on the whip’s victim. A nerve
twitching at the corner of his mouth was the only evidence of emotion her
father betrayed. The convict was writhing now, pulling futilely at his bonds.
His head was thrown back in agony. From the corner of her eye, Sarah saw the
shirtless, barrel-chested man who wielded the whip begin to shake the leather
thongs out once again. The prisoner must have heard the sound. A series of
shudders shook his long muscles.

“Stop it!” Before the intention had even crystallized
in her mind, Sarah was running forward. That it was not her place to intervene
barely occurred to her. She could not, would not, be a silent witness to such
brutality. She pushed through the crowd, uncaring that every eye was suddenly
riveted on her. Every eye, that is, except those belonging to the man with the
whip. Either he had not heard her cry or intended to ignore it. He lifted the
whip high over his head.

“I said stop it!” Sarah’s voice was shrill with
outrage as she thrust herself between the whip and its victim. “Stop it
this instant! Do you hear me?”

“Sarah!” Her father sounded shocked as he turned to
her. Sarah threw him a brief, burning look before her eyes locked with those of
the man with the whip. The man’s eyes were small, and of so pale a blue
as to be almost colorless. They shone with menace as he glared at her. After
the brief hesitation caused by her intervention, he was once again beginning to
raise the whip.

“Get out of the way, lady,” he warned softly.

“I will not!”

“Sarah!” Shaking off the instant of paralysis that had
held him frozen in place, her father rushed to her. His fingers dug into her
soft flesh as he caught her by the upper arm.

“Rogers!” the captain warned at nearly the same
moment, shaking his head in a curt negative at the man with the whip. Those
colorless eyes gleamed evilly at Sarah for a moment longer. Then the man looked
at his captain and slowly lowered the whip.

“Sarah, what in the name of heaven do you think you’re
doing? You’re interfering with this man’s just punishment—as
well as Captain Farley’s very proper running of his ship!” Edward
Markham’s mutter, meant for her ears alone, was angry and embarrassed at
the same time. Sarah looked at him mutinously. He was not a tall man—he
and she were almost of a height—but he was built like a bull terrier,
broad and muscular. Even his face with its deeply carved lines reminded her of
a bull terrier’s. Anger emphasized his florid complexion so that his skin
was almost the color of his thinning red hair; his embarrassment at her action
made him seem to swell. Sarah met his bulging gray eyes calmly: she was not
afraid of her father.

“Pa, how can you be party to such a thing?” she
demanded, her voice as low as his—and as angry. “It is barbarous!
It must be stopped!”

Her father scowled at her; his bristling, ginger-colored eyebrows
almost met over the bridge of his nose. “Of course it seems barbarous to
you—it was never meant for your eyes! What are you doing here, anyway?
You have no business on a convict ship—and you cannot go about
interfering in things that are none of your concern!”

“If you mean this—this atrocity—it is my
concern! It is the concern of anyone with the smallest spark of human decency!
They will kill him!”

“Very likely.” Her father did not seem troubled by the
prospect.

“Pa!”

“Sarah, he deserves it: he nearly killed a man this morning,
trying to escape. And on the voyage out he did his best to incite the other
convicts to mutiny. He’s a bad one, daughter, and no mistake. He deserves
every lick. He’ll cause trouble wherever he goes.”

“Mr. Markham, I must ask you to remove this young lady. I
take it you are related? Yes? . . . I would like to get this business
concluded. I have many other matters to attend to this afternoon.”
Captain Farley, a swarthy man not much taller than her father, came to stand
beside Edward Markham. His eyes were cold with disapproval as they moved over
Sarah.

“This—business—has gone quite far enough!”
Sarah’s voice was as icy as the captain’s. She glared at him, chin
thrust defiantly forward, arms akimbo, her fists planted on her hips. In her
unfashionably plain white shirtwaist and dun-colored skirt, with her hair swept
back into a dowdy bun, she should have been a negligible figure, easy to
dismiss. Only those great golden eyes flashing angrily warned that she was not.

“Mr. Markham!”

“Sarah!” Her father was almost growling with
exasperation. His hand on her arm tightened, and for a moment Sarah thought
that he meant to pull her out of the way by force.

“Pa, this is the man meant for Lowella, isn’t
it?” It required little imagination to link the whip’s victim to
Percival’s tale. At her father’s reluctant nod, she continued,
“Then he is subject to your authority and no one else’s. You surely
will not allow him to be beaten to death! I would never have believed such a
thing of you!”

“Young lady . . .” The captain’s tone was
ominous. Sarah met his eyes with outrage in her own. He fell silent.

“Sarah, I have renounced all claim to the man. Captain
Farley has returned the money I paid for him. And, since I have refused to take
him, he remains under Captain Farley’s jurisdiction. Under the
circumstances, the captain had no choice but to order the man punished, and I
cannot feel that the punishment is unjust. I know it seems harsh to you, but it
serves as a deterrent to others as well as to the man himself.”

“If he survives it,” Sarah muttered. From the corner
of her eye she could see the subject of their argument. He was slumped against
the pole, the muscles of his arms threatening to burst through the skin as they
bore his whole weight. He hung limply, head down, apparently oblivious to the
cessation of the whipping. Blood ran down his arms and welled from his back to
soak his breeches, which were so faded and filthy that their original color was
impossible to determine. A swarm of green flies, now that the killing lash had
been stilled, buzzed around that bloodied back; occasionally one would alight
to gorge itself on the oozing pulp. Bare to the waist, bloodied, drenched with
sweat, the convict was animalistic in his maleness. Ordinarily Sarah would have
been repulsed by such raw masculinity. But the man aroused a fierce protective
instinct in her. She was determined to save him.

“Mr. Markham!” Captain Farley sounded furious now. He
kept glancing around, and as Sarah followed his eyes she realized that one
reason for the rapid increase of his temper was the staring, murmuring crowd of
men surrounding them: Captain Farley disliked being made to look a fool.
“I must insist that this outrageous situation be resolved at once! If you
do not remove this young lady—immediately!—I will do so.”

“You will not lay a hand on my daughter.” Edward
Markham was not the most loving of fathers, but he had never laid a hand on
her, and Sarah knew he would allow no one else to do so. “Sarah . .
.” His mouth was tight with exasperation as he turned his eyes back to
her.

“Give the captain back his money, Pa!”

“Sarah!”

“I mean it, Pa: I’m not moving until you do.”
Her chin jutted with determination.

“Sarah, you know as well as I do that a man of that stamp is
the very last thing we need on Lowella. For God’s sake, use your head,
girl!”

Sarah met her father’s eyes steadily. “I know
he’s a troublemaker. It makes no difference. No matter what he is or what
he has done, he does not deserve to be beaten in such a fashion.”

“Sarah . . .”

“Mr. Markham!”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Edward Markham snapped,
glaring from Captain Farley’s angry face to Sarah’s determined one.
With a snort, he reached into his coat pocket for his purse. “Have the
man cut down, Farley,” he growled. Then, turning back to Sarah, he added
in the same tone, “You’re getting too headstrong, girl. No wonder
you haven’t got a husband. You’d badger the poor man to his
grave.”

“Thank you, Pa.” Sarah ignored her father’s
exasperated aside and smiled at him as, wincing, he counted the sum out of his
purse and handed it to Captain Farley, who did not appear mollified. Instead of
returning her smile, Edward Markham glared at her.

“I’ve a feeling you’ll soon rue this day,
daughter, and no doubt I will, too!”

Sarah did not reply. Instead, she turned her attention to the two
sailors who were, on Captain Farley’s orders, sawing through the thick
rope that bound the convict’s irons to the hook. When the rope was cut,
the man’s arms dropped heavily around the pole. For just an instant, as
his legs struggled to bear his weight, he stood upright, leaning heavily
against the pole. Then his knees buckled. Groaning, he sagged to the deck. Only
his arms, which were still shackled around the mast, prevented him from
pitching forward onto his face. His forehead resting against the smooth wood of
the mizzen, he half-crouched, half-slumped. The flies, which had swarmed upward
in alarm at his sudden movement, settled in once more to continue their meal.
One broad, bloodied shoulder twitched in silent protest.

Sarah stepped forward, meaning to shoo the flies away, but her
father’s hand on her arm stayed her.

“Don’t get carried away by kindness, daughter. The
man’s naught but a convict, remember. And dangerous.”

“That may be true, Pa, but he’s nearly unconscious.
And something must be done for his back. We can’t possibly transport him
to Lowella in that state.”

“You’ve saved his life for him; that’s enough.
If he’d had the full two hundred lashes Farley had ordered, he would
surely have died. I have not the slightest doubt that he’ll survive until
we can get him back to Lowella and Madeline can tend him. Curse the
luck.” This last was an irritated mutter, but Sarah heard.

Frowning, she considered. Madeline, an aborigine who had lived on
Lowella for as long as Sarah could remember, was a very good nurse. It was she
who cared for the convicts when they were ill or injured. Sarah, as the virtual
mistress of the station, was almost as well versed in the arts of healing, but
she practiced only on her family and the house servants. She had never nursed a
man—her father had never been ill a day in his life—and certainly
never a convict. Their neighbors would have been scandalized if one of
Lowella’s ladies had so demeaned herself. But, under the circumstances,
the only humane thing to do now was to administer at least rudimentary first
aid to that grievously injured back.

“If that man’s back isn’t cleaned and covered
before we set out, you’ll have wasted a considerable amount of money. If
he doesn’t bleed to death, which looks to be entirely possible, those
wounds could putrefy. In either case, he’ll die.”