Love's Odyssey (9 page)

No one answered. Was Margitte inside?
It wasn't like her to go out and leave her door unlocked. A sudden thought made her bring her hand to her mouth. Had Loulie gotten into the cabin? Did Margitte lie injured? Unease rippled through Romell as she entered the dark cabin and fumbled for the flint.

She stood in the darkness considering what to do. Something was wrong, she felt it. Should she search out someone else to . . . ?

Arms came around her from behind, hands closed over her breasts. She gave a shocked gasp and the arms fell away.

"You're not Margitte," Adrien's voice said.

In relief, she turned and reached toward him, feeling her fingers touch his arm. "Oh, Adrien," she said, clinging to his sleeve. "Thank God it's you."

"Romell!" His arms went around her.

As she felt the thud of Adrien's heart against her, everything but that reality left Romell's mind. Warmth rose in her. This was right, this was everything in the world; nothing else was important, nothing else existed. . . .

His hands pressed her to him and her body throbbed against his hardness. But then, with the suddenness of an Indian raid, she was assailed by arrows of doubt, of jealousy, of anger.

Adrien came to Margitte's cabin, not mine. Adrien expected to make love to Margitte, not me. He doesn’t love me—he doesn’t even want me.

Romell pushed violently away from Adrian, shoving at him. Caught off guard, he reeled backward and crashed into the wall.

"Don’t touch me!" she cried, knowing the words sounded foolish, but unable to order her thoughts.

"What the hell’s the matter with you?" he asked angrily. "I wouldn’t have laid a hand on you if you hadn’t--"

"I hate you!" she exclaimed.

"Like you hate Pieter Brouwer? You know damn well he was the man I chased. Why didn’t you tell the commandeur it was Brouwer who attacked you. If it really was an attack…"

"Oh!" she cried, unable to think of any other word to express her outrage. "Oh!" She doubled her fists and struck out in the darkness, hoping to hit him, trying to hurt him.

A thundering crash ripped through the ship. The
Zuiderwind
lurched violently, pitching sideways. Romell was thrown across the cabin to sprawl, with Adrien, on the floor--in a series of grinding roars the ship staggered crazily, finally trembling to a halt.

"We’ve gone aground!" Adrien shouted, his voice echoed in the sudden ominous silence.

Chapter 9

Adrien and Romell hurried up to the quarterdeck, Romell clinging to Adrien's arm, struggling to stand upright against the list of the ship. She felt a kind of panicky excitement.

"She's canted to port," Adrien shouted over the cries and curses of the sailors, and the ominous creaking of the ship's timbers and rigging.

Lanterns bobbed in the darkness as men scurried about. From the poop deck
Commandeur
Zwaan railed at Skipper Hardens.

"God's Death! Where in hell are we, Skipper, can you tell me?"

The skipper shouted back defiantly, "The lookout didn't spot white water. Is he an owl who sees in the dark?"

"I asked, where are we?" The
commandeur's
voice was grim.

"God knows for sure. By my reckoning we're six or seven hours off Southland."

"God save us from your reckoning! Look what it's brought us to."

Romell turned to Adrien. "What will happen?" she asked.

"If we're lucky and ran aground at low water, a rising tide might float us off."

"Lighten ship!" the skipper shouted. "Unlash the cannon."

Romell heard the rumbling as the heavy bronze and iron pieces rolled to the rails, heard the splash as they hit the water.

"All—everything goes," Skipper Hardens commanded.

The
Zuiderwind
quivered, slipping still farther over on her port side. Romell let go of Adrien and grabbed a railing to stay on her feet. Surf boomed above the groaning of the trapped ship.

"Much more pounding and she'll spring her timbers," Adrien said.

Romell glanced back into the darkness toward the small boats lashed amidships. "Will we have to abandon ship?"

"They'll try to wait until dawn to decide, more than likely."

"Are we aground on the coast of Southland? The skipper didn't think we'd reached there yet."

"Probably an offshore reef. But as to where who knows?" Adrien said.

Romell thought of all the tales she'd heard of the mysterious territory called Southland. Only a few years ago it was still called Unknown Land and little was known about it even now. Strange animals with great hind legs who hopped instead of running abounded there, and the scarred and naked natives were rumored to kill and eat all strangers.

Would it be worse to be wrecked on the Southland coast than on a hidden reef somewhere in the middle of the sea? Romell looked up at the sky and saw
, to her, the still-unfamiliar stars that made up the Southern Cross. Even the sky was alien here. She shivered, edging closer to Adrien.

As the sky paled with dawn, a lookout stationed in the rigging shouted, "Land!" A sigh went
up from the passengers and crew huddled on deck.

Romell strained to see in the uncertain light. Two low islands lay immediately ahead of them, and away to the east Romell thought she saw the dark smudge of more land.

"We must thank God," a voice cried. It was minister,
Predikant
Deeters.

While the passengers prayed with the
predikant
, sailors lowered the yawl—a ten-man rowboat—into the sea, and four of them climbed down into the boat. Romell saw Margitte on her knees by the
commandeur's
cabin, head bowed. She preferred to stay on her feet, next to Adrien, as she gave her own thanks.

While the passengers prayed with the
predikant,
sailors lowered the yawl—a ten–man rowboat--into the sea and four of them climbed down into the boat.

Romell saw Margitte on her knees by the commadeur’s cabin, head bowed. She preferred to stay on her feet, next to Adrien, as she gave her own thanks.

Soon the four sailors returned from taking soundings. “The water’s fourteen feet in back

nine forward and the tide’s
up,” Romell heard one of them report to the skipper.

“We’ll never float her,”
Commandeur
Zwaan snapped at Captin Hardens. “You’ve ruined us.”

As the tide dropped, water foamed and crashed around the ship. The
Zuiderwind
slammed her keel so hard against the reef that Romell heard timbers splinter.

“Passengers to the bow,” Skipper Hardens ordered. “Soldiers to the stern. Sailors stand clear.”

"He's going to try to save the
Zuiderwind
by putting the mainmast overboard," Adrien told Romell. "This battering on the reef could drive the mast through the ship's bottom."

Skipper Hardens, axe in hand, stepped up to the mast to strike the first blow, then gave the axe to a sailor and stood by directing the cut. Chips flew; the mast creaked and swayed. With a great splintering of wood, the mast went over. A groan went up as it fell, for the mast crashed toward the stern instead of going over the rail. Romell stared in alarm as the sails covered the smashed ship's boats like a shroud.

Moments later, the screams of injured sailors and soldiers rose above the boom of the surf and the ominous cracking of the ship.

"God save us! God save us!" a woman shrieked from the bow.

"Keep calm," Skipper Hardens ordered. He turned to the
commandeur
. "I tell you, we must abandon ship."

"There is certainly no other choice,"
Commandeur
Zwaan agreed.

"Women and children to the rail!" the skipper shouted, pointing to where the yawl waited below.

"I want to stay with you," Romell told Adrien.

He shook his head and guided her along the canted deck to the rail where the women and children were gathering. "Do as the skipper says. Don't argue."

Adrien helped her over the side, and Romell found herself in the yawl with Margitte and the
predikant's
thirteen-year-old daughter, Catarina. The
predikant’s
wife climbed down, then two small boys and their mother.

"That's all this trip," one of the sailors manning the oars shouted up.

As the tide dropped, water foamed and crashed around the ship. The Zuiderwind slammed her keel so hard against the reef that Romell heard timbers splinter.

Margitte clutched Romell’s hand as the boat scraped against the reef when they shoved away from the ship. Once free of the eddying reef waters, the row to shore was quick and easy.

Romell and the other passengers waded onto what was the larger island, a barren, windswept place of sand and rocks. A flock of seabirds flew up in front of them, squawking in protest at the intrusion.

When all the women and children had been landed, the yawl ferried the male passengers to the island, then supplies. The sailors rolled casks of food and barrels of water ashore. Predikant Deeters tried to organize the group of over fifty people, telling them not to breach the water barrels or gobble food indiscriminately, but the few who listened to him were frightened into action by those who paid him no attention. Romell felt her own throat go dry at the thought that the water might soon be gone, gone before she had her share.

She looked everywhere for Adrien but couldn't find him. Margitte trailed her wherever she went, as though afraid to let Romell out of her sight.

"The least he might have done is take me aboard," Margitte muttered. "So much for trusting any man when his own skin is in danger."

Romell looked at her, not understanding.

"Didn't you see Cornelius put the sloop in the water? He and the skipper lost no time getting aboard, I'll wager. And that fat slut, Loulie."

"Surely they won't abandon us?"

"Nothing men do surprises me," Margitte said bitterly. Romell walked with her along the shore to stare at the doomed Zuiderwind, leaving the squabble over the supplies behind them. The sloop was clearly visible sailing around the smaller island. "They're coming toward us," Romell said.

When the sloop was near enough, Skipper Hardens, Loulie, and two sailors scrambled over the side of the crowded vessel and floundered through waist-high water toward shore. Once on the beach, the skipper, flanked by the sailors, hurried toward the group struggling for possession of the supplies, shouting and waving his arms.

Loulie, her wet clothes outlining her full figure, shot a contemptuous look at Margitte and Romell, then followed the three men. When Romell glanced back at the sloop, she saw it was tacking away from the island. Margitte called across the water: "Cornelius—take me aboard!"

There was no answer.

"He heard me, I know he did. The bastard," Margitte muttered.

If the sloop was already crowded, Romell reasoned, it couldn't be heading back to the Zuiderwind to bring the rest of the survivors ashore.

"Off to Java," Margitte said angrily. "You mark my words—the man's a coward. The skipper may be a fool, but Cornelius Zwaan is worse—out to save his own skin and to the devil with everyone else."

"But if the sloop gets to Batavia, we'll be rescued. Surely they'll send a ship for us."

"Yes, yes, they'll send a rescue ship. But will any of us be alive when it gets here? It could take months." Margitte jerked her head toward the frantic crowd around the supplies. "Every man for himself."

Romell saw the yawl push away from the ship again. Aboard were soldiers, for she could see pikes and muskets. After they landed, the soldiers helped Skipper Hardens and the sailors establish order. The yawl brought several more loads of supplies and men. Romell, who'd haunted the shore scanning each man who came off the yawl, ran into the water when she finally spotted Adrien. As he and the others waded ashore, the sailors pulled the rowboat up onto the beach, and Romell realized that Adrien had waited until the last load.

"I'm so glad you're here," she cried, looking into his face.

Margitte got up from her resting place against a large rock and hurried over to clutch Adrien's arm. "For God's sake, help me," she begged.

Adrien found a sheltered spot in the lee of a rise and brought Margitte and Romell a blanket from the supplies. Their food allotment was a piece of hard bread and two swallows of water each.

"Not everyone's here," Romell said, after she had finished the inadequate meal. "There can't be more than a hundred people on the island. Were that many killed when the mast fell?"

"Cornelius took at least thirty on the sloop," Margitte said bitterly.

"Some of the crew wouldn't leave the ship," Adrien told them. "I don't know how many are dead."

"That's almost two hundred people not accounted for," Romell said slowly. She thought of the soldiers cramped in their steerage compartment and of the crew who slept in the hold, and suddenly she realized what must have happened. "They drowned, didn't they?" she asked Adrien.

"Some must have—the ones below had no chance. There's no way of reckoning how many were lost. Not yet."

As darkness gathered, Romell noticed a pinpoint of light at the front of the wreck. She pointed. "Wouldn't that be in Commandeur Zwaan's cabin?" she asked.

“You can be sure it's not Cornelius," Margitte snapped.

"Crewmen and soldiers looting," Adrien said. "We couldn't get them off the ship. Before I left, they'd opened a couple of wine barrels and most of them were roaring drunk."

"Aren't they afraid the ship will break up?" Romell asked.

"I doubt they're able to think at all. The yawl will go out in the morning to take them off."

"Do you think it's right, the
commandeur
leaving us stranded while he sailed away in that sloop, pretty as you please?" Margitte demanded.

"Someone had to try to make Batavia, or we'd be doomed." Adrien said.

Romell and Margitte settled down under the blanket; Adrien propped himself up against a rock beside them. Romell couldn't help wishing that Margitte had left in the sloop with Cornelius Zwaan, for then she and Adrien might now be sharing the blanket. She sighed, thinking that lying in Adrien's arms would be far more comforting than having Margitte next to her.

Romell woke, in the gray light of early dawn, to the sound of angry voices. Beside her, Margitte stirred and raised her head. Adrien was nowhere in sight.

"I'd hoped it was a bad dream." Margitte groaned.

They got to their feet, Romell remembering to fold the blanket and drape it over her arm lest someone take it. Her black dress was hopelessly wrinkled and Margitte's pink gown was as bad. She tried to smooth her hair with her fingers. The shouting grew louder.

"That sounds like the skipper," Margitte said.

"Where's Adrien gone?" Romell shook her head, listening. Jan Hardens' furious words whipped past her on the wind. Something about the yawl. Spray flew up from the rocks, and suddenly there was a great shattering roar as the bow splintered off the
Zuiderwind
and was swept away in the foaming surf.

Romell hurried toward the shoreline, her eyes fixed on the wreck where, she saw, men were trying to put a small boat over the side. She cried out in horror as two of them were swept away in the heavy seas.