Текст книги "Beyond The Blue Mountains"

Автор книги: Jean Plaidy

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 36 страниц)

All about them were their ribald companions of the voyage, men, women, boys and girls; murderers and highwaymen, people who had stolen a loaf, of bread, river thieves, counterfeiters the innocent and the guilty. Gin flowed freely. Old songs were sung.

Some sang of their joy to be rid of their country; some were sentimental in a maudlin way about leaving it Men and women embraced openly; young boys and young women, mere children, followed their example. Conversation was as obscene as they knew how to make it. Some danced; some sang; some wept;

some laughed. And Kitty sat there, propped up, seeing nothing.

When the ay of “Clear ship!” went up, Carolan and Esther between them managed to get Kitty below. There they had all remained since in the fetid atmosphere, among the rats which were tame and insolent and had no respect for this rag-tag shipload of convicts. The hatches had been secured; and the only light and air came through one hatchway, and at night there were candles in iron lanterns. Sometimes though, the hatches had to be removed, for the captain did not wish to arrive at the settlement with a cargo of dead prisoners.

Days and nights merged into one. They ate their meagre allowances of food. Kitty had given up eating hers. She lay languid, with her eyes wide open … but they weren’t like Kitty’s eyes.

“Ah!” said the woman who shared their berth, and who had told them she was known to the taverns of Thames-side as Flash Jane.

“She’s a bright one! Hi! Wake up, me lady, and let’s run me blinkers over you.”

“Please do not touch her,” said Carolan.

“She is very ill.” The woman shrugged her shoulders, muttering something about fine ladies’ manners. She would have them know she was of the real quality of a prison ship; none of your half and halfs. Why, curse them, she had been brought up before. She was no newcomer to Newgate. She had robbed many a fine gentleman, she had; ah, and slept with many more. Highwaymen and lords … they were all one to her. River thieves and gentry. Ah! There were things she could tell about them all, but why they wanted to coop her up with a gang like this, she couldn’t be saying. She thought things were managed better than that at Newgate and on board. She had a friend outside who was looking after her. she had; he had come on board to take his last farewell. “Come back in seven years time, Jane,” he said.

“I will not be the one to forget you.” He was good to me, Jem was … And I was good to nun. Here you … Got long ears now, have you not?” She leaned over and pulled the ear of the trembling girl cowering in the corner. The child was misshapen. alarmingly ugly… almost not like a child. Flash Jane began to whisper to her of her adventures with highwaymen and lords and Jem and others. The child shrunk back into her corner, listening.

“Esther!” cried Carolan.

“How can we bear this!”

Esther said: “We go through the fire, Carolan, that we may be tried, and if we come through safely are we not cleansed?”

“You make me angry. Do you call this a cleansing process?”

Esther tried to reason: “You are suffering more keenly now. Carolan. I have got over the worst. The worst for me was in Newgate when I was alone and friendless. Now I have your friendship I can never be so unhappy again.”

Carolan fought back her tears.

“Oh, be silent, Esther!” she snapped; and then suddenly, putting her hand over Esther’s thin one: “Forgive me! I am so tired of living. I wish the boat would go down.”

“Ah!” said Esther.

“You waited for your lover, and he did not come.”

“What a lover!” cried Carolan.

“I was in Newgate, and he did not come for me. Esther, let me talk to you of him. Let me try to show him to you as he was. So tall, so dear-eyed, so gentle in his talk, so understanding, so mild, so good! I first loved him when I was a frightened little girl. I think I was no more than five, and my cruel half-brother shut me inside the family vault and I was frightened. Everard opened the door and came to me. I loved him from then on. I must go on loving him till I die. And, Esther, I shall never see him again. I am an exile from England for seven years, and what will those seven years bring, Esther? Why did he not come? They say people have escaped from Newgate; I used to dream that he came and rescued me from Newgate as he did all those years ago from the dark tomb.”

To rescue you from Newgate would have been well nigh impossible, Carolan.”

“Still … some would nave attempted it!” She was thinking now of Marcus with his jaunty smile and his blue eyes in his wrinkled face, and the glitter of those eyes … the recklessness of him.

“What use to attempt it, Carolan? Greater trouble would have followed.”

“Oh. you and your doctrines! You make me weary, Esther. I will have none of them. Listen, I have to live through this, have I not? From now on I live for myself … I will steal, I will cheat. I shall think of no one, care for no one…”

“Carolan. what rubbish you talk! While you are yourself you will always care for someone. You must not steal; you must not cheat; for that would not be you, Carolan. I never forget the way you stepped in amongst us with your head high. You looked to me like a leader. Do you know what I mean. Carolan… someone who can fight, but only for what is right. Someone meant to show the way…”

Carolan laughed.

“What a leader! What a noble spectacle in my rags and my dirt!”

“Wilfully you misunderstand.”

“I tell you, you are quite mistaken about me. I am weak and foolish, and I was largely responsible for bringing this tragedy about. I fought those women without any noble thoughts in my mind. They wanted my clothes; I wanted to keep them. Marcus is like I am. Circumstances affect us. Had fortune not changed for him. he would have been a high-spirited squire, fond of fun, whose life is made up of amours and gambling. I am like that too. We are very strong and very weak; things happen to us. and we are no longer the same people… You are different, Esther; you have your faith.”

“Oh, if you but had it too, Carolan!”

“I could not have faith in anything any more, Esther. I can never believe anything without proof. Do you hope to convert me, Esther? Do you hope to convert Marcus?”

A flood of colour rushed into Esther’s face.

“Do you think I could?” she said.

“I think,” said Carolan, ‘that if you looked as beautiful as you do now in spite of rags and filth Marcus would be only too willing to listen … in the hope, of course, of making you listen to him.”

“You are hard on him. He means no harm.” Carolan turned away. Dear Esther, who thought that Lucy of Newgate was a mere acquaintance of his, and the dark-haired gipsy who was hanging round his neck while they said goodbye to friends on deck, was merely expressing her gratitude for some small kindness!

“You’re sweet,” she said suddenly.

“I wouldn’t have you otherwise. Stay close to me, Esther. Listen to me when I want to be listened to. Let me be angry with you when I want to be angry … and please, please do not let my ill temper make any difference to our friendship.”

Kitty began to moan.

Carolan leaned over her: “Mamma, Mamma, is the pain worse then?”

“Is that you, George?” said Kitty.

“She is dreaming,” said Carolan, ‘dreaming of Haredon, her old home, the place where I was born.”

“Do you think her leg is worse?” said Esther.

Carolan lifted Kitty’s rags and looked at the leg. When she had seen it on deck she had been deeply shocked. The discoloration and the swelling presented an alarming sight. Something ought to be done quickly; the irons removed, a doctor called. She had shouted to one of the Marines, whose duty it was to look in on the prisoners now and then, that her mother was sick and needed attention, but the Marine had orders not to speak to any of the convicts: any complaints were to be put before a senior officer; he had been warned that he was travelling with the equivalent of a cargo of wild beasts who, ignorant as they might seem, were possessed of beast cunning, who would be for ever planning violence since violence was second nature to them. Therefore he ignored Carolan’s plea for help.

“It does not look any worse,” said Carolan, and added, ‘as far as I can see. If only they would strike off these irons. I am sure it would heal.”

Kitty lifted her hand and Carolan took it; Kitty’s was icy cold, which was extraordinary, for the fetid atmosphere of the prisoners’ quarters was stifling, and Carolan’s hands were burning.

“Mamma,” said Carolan, ‘do you feel any better?”

“Yes, my darling, I feel better.”

Carolan touched her mother’s forehead; it was as cold as her hands.

“She is better!” whispered Carolan.

“She knows me.” There was a haze in the atmosphere which came from mingled breath and the steam of sweating bodies; it was foul with the slime and muck of years, with disease and filth and the odour of vermin. There was a good deal of noise down below the constant muttering and grumbling and shrieking and chattering and laughing that might come from a cage full of monkeys. Those above had found it impossible to insist on silence down below; there must be certain privileges even for. wild beasts. So the prisoners talked and laughed and wept aloud, and they walked about in the narrow space between the tiers of bunks, like grim spectres in an underworld. They fought among themselves; they planned escape; they boasted of past successes in the worlds of crime and lust; and degradation was their, god, to be bowed down to and worshipped, and those who had achieved most in his service were considered the cream of the prison society.

Carolan, holding her mother’s hand, listening to the conversation going on around her, watched the ghostly figures prowling about in the dim light, stared through that hazy atmosphere and asked for death. An old hag with bare, pendulous breasts, hideous in the extreme, was squatting on her, berth telling her berth mates how she had most successfully combined a life of lust and profit. Every now and then one of them would burst into shrieks of unnatural laughter. Another old woman, her back bent, her limbs gripped with rheumatism, was murmuring to herself of the revenge she was going to take on someone home in Wapping, when she had done her seven years. Someone else was singing in a loud, discordant voice.

“Carolan…” said Kitty.

“Yes, Mamma. Do you want to be raised?”

Esther leaned forward, and together they raised Kitty.

Ts that better. Mamma?”

Kitty said: “Climb in beside me, Carolan. What a little thing you are! Tell me, darling, is she kind to you … Does she beat you? You would tell me, if she did … surely you would tell me?”

Carolan whispered to Esther: “She is wandering. She is back in my childhood.”

Carolan put her lips to her mother’s forehead, and went on: There was a nurse whom I was afraid of. Now I see how weak she was … how I need not have been afraid. Esther, do you think … years hence … we shall see that we need not have been afraid… even of this?”

“Yes,” said Esther, “I know. We shall look down on the suffering we endured here below and smile at what we were.”

“Ah!” sighed Carolan impatiently.

“I was not thinking of what would happen to us beyond the pearly gates. I mean… here… in this world. I talk of reality, not dreams. Oh, forgive me, Esther, I am a beast! I am wicked. Why do you not hate me?”

“Hate you! That makes me smile. What cause have I ever had but to love you!”

“Carolan!” said Kitty.

“Are you there, my daughter?”

Carolan bent over her mother.

“Darling, does it not tire you to sit up so?”

“Carolan … you laugh, but do you know life as I know it? I tell you, he does not belong here … A gentleman of the quality he is … Have you not noticed the way his eyes look at you, Carolan… A parson! My daughter, the wife of a parson.”

Carolan began to cry.

“It is raining.” said Kitty.

“I must go now, Darrell… Peg will let me in; she is my friend … Aunt Harriet will be sleeping in her room…”

“I do not like to hear her talk thus,” said Carolan.

“It frightens me. And yet, she is more coherent than she was. I wish we had water. How hot it is in here! Esther, how long will it take to get to Botany Bay? How long have we been at sea?”

“I do not know.” said Esther.

“Several days and nights … I think I have counted six, but I cannot be sure.”

“I like the rain on my face, Peg,” said Kitty.

“It is so good for the skin… as good as your lotions. Therese and you know it!”

Kitty attempted a laugh, but her lips were so thick and dry it scarcely came through, and it ended in a gurgling in her throat.

“It is well that she does not know she is here.” said Carolan.

“Esther, I wonder what is waiting for us on the other side of the world!”

“Nothing could be worse than prison and this ship, could it, Carolan? We shall have work to do, and surely any work is better than no work at all.”

That I cannot say. How will my mother fare there, do you think? She has been used to a maid to dress her hair; I remember well how the colour of ribbon could be the burning question of the day.”

Kitty stirred in her arms. She began to sway a little, there was coquetry in all her movements. Now she was a young girl in a coach, and her broad-brimmed hat hid her eyes from the ardent gaze of the young man opposite. Now she was mischievous, slipping out of a house in late evening to meet her one true love in a wood. Now she was married to George Haredon, the sensualist who had desired her so strongly .that he had married her and provided the solution of her troubles, and even when he had discovered how she had deceived him. still yearned to be her lover.

“George…” came through her cracked and swollen lips.

“I… hate… you… George… Do not touch me…” Her heavy lids closed over her eyes; her lips curled up at the corners; she was excited. George was being as cruel, as exciting in her thoughts as he had been all those years ago at Haredon.

Her mood changed quickly. A gracious lady receiving the Prince at the head of the staircase of her country house … a fascinating creature who had thrown herself away on her own true love and must pass her days in the shop parlour of a secondhand shop… A young girl repressed in the household of a spinster aunt, a wife running away from her cruel husband with the man she loved… “She is getting better.” said Carolan. ‘her mind is active. But how cold she is! I wish we had something with which we could cover her. How swollen her leg is! It is festering there. Oh, Esther, surely we can make them do something! I know they do not care how we live down here, or whether we live at all. but we must make them! I am going to do something. Esther. I will not endure this. When one of them comes down here again I will seize him; I will insist. I will make them do something!”

Flash Jane, who had been crooning to herself, sat up listening with sudden interest. When she moved, an indescribable odour rose from her.

“Going to make them, eh?” He! He! Going to make ‘em do something, eh?” laughed Flash Jane.

Carolan turned on her.

“Do you think I am afraid of them?”

“He! He! You will be, I’ll warrant, when you’ve had the lash about your shoulders. It ain’t nice, lady, the lash ain’t. Ye’re a pulp of bleeding flesh when they’ve done with yer … and then there’s the maggots crawling in your sores, driving you well nigh crazy. I know. I’ve seen it. lady.”

Esther began to tremble. Carolan said: “Bah! Do you think I am afraid!” But she was afraid, horribly afraid.

“We should not endure it!” she said fiercely.

“Why should we? We are human beings, are we not?”

“We ain’t ‘uman beings, lady! We are only the poor!” The woman’s eyes were like sloes, her teeth hideous yellow-brown stumps, her breath foul, her head alive with lice.

Kitty said: “Now, sir! You flatter! Do you think then that I was born yesterday?”

Flash Jane burst into paroxysms of laughter; she slapped Carolan on the back.

“Quite the lady, eh?

“Now, sir! You flatter! Do you think I was born yesterday?” She leaned forward and peered into Kitty’s face.

“Yesterday! Oh, no, me lady … a good four and forty years ago, I’d be saying!”

Carolan pushed her off fiercely.

“Keep away!”

“All right! All right! We ain’t so used to the quality, you know … If I don’t get a drop of gin soon I’ll go stark crazy!”

“Go crazy if you like.” said Carolan.

“But keep your distance.”

Esther put out a warning hand. The woman crept up to Carolan, and put her evil-smelling face close to hers. Carolan gave her a push which sent her sprawling. Someone laughed. Eyes watched with interest, hoping for a little trouble to relieve the gloom.

But Flash Jane was not ready for a fight. Though, she thought, a few years back I’d have scratched the eyes out of the little she-cat. But today the she-cat was too much for her… young claws are sharp. Flash Jane turned her attention to the misshapen child beside her and began laying about her with fury.

“Snickering at me, snickering, are you? Take that, you imp! Take that!”

Flash Jane was soon exhausted. The girl whimpered and Flash Jane lay growling like a wild animal which has successfully fooled its fellows into thinking it is stronger than it is.

Somewhere in the gangway two middle-aged women began to dance; they took off their rags, bit by bit, until they were naked: and there they danced together amorously, lewdly, and the fetid hole of the women’s quarters was filled with ribald laughter.

“I do declare,” said Kitty, and Carolan had to put her ear close to her mother’s mouth, so great was the noise, “I do declare that I could have rivalled Sarah Siddons … Listen … the applause … listen …”

The hatchway was thrown open suddenly. The eyes of the convicts were bright with interest. The monotony of the first days at sea was being broken at last.

“All on deck!” shouted a voice.

“What is it?” said Carolan, excited as the others.

“A hundred lashes apiece!” chortled an old woman.

“Your back will be like a piece of butcher’s meat before they be finished with you!”

“What do you know!” said a tall, gaunt woman who seemed to be something of an authority among the convicts.

“I can tell you. We’re well out to sea. It is “all on deck” for the striking off of out irons!”

Carolan began to cry weakly.

“Thank God! Thank God!” She sprang up onto the berth.

“Mamma! Mamma! They are going to strike off the irons. Now you will be well again!”

But Kitty lay in a heap, her eyes closed, her body cold, and Carolan, shaken with a sudden horrible fear, knew that it was too late, for whether or not the irons were struck off could mean nothing to Kitty now.

The sun beat down incessantly, pitilessly upon the ship, and there was no breath of wind to help her on her way. She lay, as though exhausted, her timbers creaking as she rolled and lurched: her sails flapped against her masts as though they reproached themselves for their uselessness. Birds cruised about her; in the glittering water a shark moved silently. There was an air of weariness abroad; there was a relaxing of discipline. On their part of the deck, shut in by barricades, the convicts lay about in groups, seeking a little shade from the merciless sun. The heat was so intense, they just lay about, too languid to talk very much; they looked a dirty, docile collection of tamed animals on this tropical afternoon. On the other side of the barricade the sentry sat yawning. He had walked up and down, musket over his shoulder, until he could bear no more. What need to guard convicts in such weather! Who would want to do anything but seek a bit of shade and sleep on such an afternoon?

The men had had their two hours exercise; some had stayed on deck, sleeping, drowsing; and there had been no attempt to send them back to their stifling quarters. The Marines had possibly been too weary themselves to assert discipline. However, there lay Marcus, and beside him, Carolan and Esther. They were talking eagerly, for though they had caught occasional glimpses of each other they had not been able to converse in all the months since they had left Portsmouth.

Marcus said: “Ah! Thank God for a calm! Look at that sentry! The man’s yawning his head off. I’ll warrant there isn’t a soldier on the ship who is not more concerned with taking forty winks than guarding a cargo of miserable convicts!”

“Marcus!” said Carolan.

“You are not thinking…”

Esther burst in: “It would be most dangerous. They say that terrible things are done to those who try to mutiny.”

“Bless you both!” said Marcus.

“I plan no mutiny. I am awaiting the journey’s end complacently. What chance would mutiny have here, think you? We should be caught, flogged and sent to solitary confinement. I know what it means!”

Carolan raised herself and looked at him. He seemed, she thought, impervious to misery. His grey convict clothes were filthy; he was unwashed, his hair matted, his skin grimy: but his startling blue eyes were bluer in the tropics than they had been under London skies; they seemed to borrow their colour from the cloudless sky and the brilliant ocean; and they were as unfathomable as the sky, as dazzling as the sea, and as unconquerable.

Carolan thought, I must make the most of this time I spend with him. I must discover what it is that makes him so hopeful, so courageous. I must borrow some of his hopefulness, borrow some of his courage.

She told him brokenly of Kitty’s death.

“Oh, Marcus, she lay there for so long. They left her beside us … and in that hot and frightful place … Oh, Marcus, I cannot talk of it; it was hell. My Mamma … my beautiful Mammal If you could have seen her in her Haredon days … in front of her mirror, with Therese trying a ribbon against her hair … and then, there in the stinking hold of a prison ship, herself no longer, just a decaying body …”

Marcus put his hand over hers; so did Esther, and the hands of Marcus and Esther met. They smiled at each other, as they comforted Carolan.

“You must not think of it, darling.” said Marcus.

“It may be better so.”

“That is what I say,” said Esther.

“Esther has talked to me of Providence and happy releases until I could scream. Marcus, please do not you talk like that!”

“I will not. But I will say this, Carolan. She is well out of it. What do you think would have happened to her on the other side?”

“I do not know,” said Carolan.

“How should I know? What will happen to us?”

“We can bear it,” said Marcus, ‘because we are younger, and when we are young we look forward; it is the ageing who look back. What have you, Carolan, or you, Esther, to look back to? What have I? We must therefore look forward. We are luckier than those who have lived well and fallen on evil days. Hope is a happier companion than regrets.”

“Oh, I do agree! I do agree!” said Esther.

Tell us, Marcus,” insisted Carolan, ‘what we must expect when we get there.”

He was silent; his blue eyes watched an albatross rise from the water. He reached for Carolan’s hand, and his fingers curled about hers.

“How should I know!” said Marcus.

“Nevertheless, you do.” said Carolan.

“You have been before, have you not?”

“But the treatment of women is not the same as that of men.”

“And you of course never spoke to a woman the whole of your time. That was like you, Marcus, never to speak to a woman!”

He moved closer to her; his eyes smiled at her.

Esther said: “Oh, Carolan! How can you … when he … has been so kind to us!”

“His kindness to us does not alter the fact, Esther,” said Carolan.

“I do not believe that Marcus has never heard the story of a female convict’s adventures. For after all, would she not be eager to talk of them to her … friends?” She paused.

“And I would rather know the worst … or perhaps the best, for I swear my experiences of the last months have led me to expect no haven of rest … nothing indeed but misery and starvation and humiliation.”

“I know little,” said Marcus, “but I will tell you what I do know. An advertisement announcing your arrival will be sent out “A cargo of females …” and those who want servants will come aboard and choose.”

“There will be no alternative but to be chosen for a servant?”

“There will be other alternatives.”

“Do you think they will try to separate us?”

“You may be lucky and keep together.”

“And if we are not chosen?”

“Well, then you will be sent to the factory a sort of clearing house. You will be put to work sooner or later.”

“For seven years!” said Carolan.

“I shall be twenty-four before I am free … it seems a lifetime.”

“Bah!” said Marcus.

“What is seven years!”

“When I think how different my life might have been, had I never run away from Haredon…”

“Bah!” said Marcus again.

“How different all our lives might have been, had we not done this and that!”

“Mine could not have been more wretched!” said Carolan bitterly.

He let his fingers touch her wrist.

“Never despair, Carolan. How do you know what is waiting?”

She turned her head and looked into his eyes. They were burning with desire for her. She looked away quickly, but she was thrilled. No! She was not despairing. It was good to know that Marcus was her friend.

She shaded her eyes against the glare of the sun.

Esther said: “Good and evil are so oddly mixed. But for the heat we should not be together again, the three of us!”

“Oh, Esther! How sweet you are! Then it means something to you, if not to this hard-hearted Carolan. that I am here to talk with you!” Carolan said: “Marcus, tell us what happened to you when you got there before.”

“I was a fool in those days. I was over-bold, not cautious enough. I got myself into a deal of trouble. I spent three months in the hulks before I sailed. I loathed the hulks. Why, here you do feel you are getting somewhere; you are moving all the time; you come on deck; you see the sea; you are aware-of the motion. But a prison hulk is belli It was for me. I was a rebel in those days, and looked upon as a troublesome prisoner. One day, dear Carolan, and you too. sweet Esther, if you can bear the sight. I will show you the scars across my back. I could not count the lashes I have had.”

Esther was blushing; Carolan scowled at him. and his answer to the scowl was a mischievous smile.

“Solitary confinement in total darkness! It drove some of them insane. I survived it. Oh, God! What a fool I was in my young days! And then I arrived and immediately planned escape. Oh. my youthful folly! Now. hope is good when there is some sound possibility to support it, but when it is propped up by folly it is disastrous. Never nurture that sort of hope. Carolan. nor you Esther! I do not think you would, Esther, but my sweet Carolan who is so like what I was at her age might be tempted to do so.”

“Oh, I am a fool of course!” said Carolan.

“With the devil’s own temper. Odd … how one loves these foibles!”

“You were telling us..” said Carolan.

“Yes, my lady, I was telling you. I tried to escape. I was brought back. I was given a thousand lashes … and I was put alone on an island outside the bay from which escape was impossible. The sea was infested with sharks. There was no shade from the sun, nor shelter against the cold night. My food was bread and water, towed out to me each week. I thought I died a thousand deaths on that island, dear children, but it was only one foolish boy who died, and in his place was born a wiser man. I was brought back from there, and worked in a road party -which meant that I lodged in barracks and tramped daily to work. I worked hard and became an overseer. I earned a little tobacco. But the devil was in me and was not sufficiently caged, so I tried escape once more; and when I was caught, I worked in a chain gang, and that, my dears, was a living hell if ever there was one! The chains about my legs were never removed for an instant. I still bear the scars of those days about my body: but I learned much that was profitable.”

“And the next time you escaped you were successful!”

“Third time lucky. But you see, here I am… and this time it is a lifer!”

Esther said earnestly: “You would not try again?”

He smiled at her lazily, and tenderly.

“I do not know, Esther. But this I can say. There would have to be a very good chance of escape before I took it I am wiser now, but perhaps not really as wise as I shall be in five years time. That is the compensation of growing old, is it not? Wisdom accompanies the grey hairs, the flagging steps.”

“What a moralizer you are.” said Carolan.

“Tell us about the chain gang.”

“It is ugly telling.”

Esther shivered.

“Nevertheless,” said Carolan, “I wish to know the truth. I never want anything dressed up to look pretty any more. Tell us, Marcus.”

“No,” he said.

“Not before Esther.”

“Oh, Esther is too squeamish! It is her way of looking at life. God is good! she says, when she sees the beauties in the world. When she sees the squalor and the wickedness, she looks the other way or forgets God had a hand in that too!”

“Don’t be harsh with Carolan, Esther; try to understand our Carolan. She has suffered much; it hardens her…”

“Be silent!” cried Carolan fiercely.

“But I thought you wanted to hear my adventures with the chain gang!”

“But you prefer not to tell in front of Esther.”

“Ah!” He laughed a little, and his eyes were burning in his face.

“I am between two fires, you see. How I long to please you both! And Dammed, I will. Carolan, we will leave Esther dozing here, and we will move just out of earshot, and I will talk to you of what you want to know.” His hand was about her wrist, burning hot.

“Come,” he said.

“Come on.”

“I am not all that eager to hear.”

“Carolan.” he said.

“Come, please. At any moment now we shall be sent back to our holes. Carolan… please …”

“And you are eager that I should know of all the horrors that await us on our arrival?”

“I think it is better to have your eyes open… if you are strong enough to bear what you see.”

He drew her a little along the deck. The exertion of the movement was exhausting.

“Carolan, I had to speak to you alone.”

“Of the chain gang?”

“That is past history. I had to talk of us.”

“Oh. Why?”

“All these months I have longed to talk with you. I cannot talk in front of Esther.”

“And yet, when she is there, you look at her as though you could bare your soul to her!”