Birds of Prey

"Nor encourage your men to resistance?" Sir Francis prompted him.

The captain nodded glumly. "I agree."

"I will need your cabin, Mijnheer, but I will find you comfortable quarters elsewhere." Sir Francis turned his attention eagerly to the canvas bag and dumped its contents on the desk.

Hal knew that, from now on, his father would be absorbed in his reading, and he glanced at Aboli on guard in the doorway. The Negro nodded permission at him, and Hal slipped out of the cabin. His father did not see him go.

Cutlass in hand, he moved cautiously down the narrow corridor. He could hear the shouts and clatter from the other decks as the crew of the Lady Edwina cleared out the defeated Dutch seamen and herded them up onto the open deck. Down here it was quiet and deserted. The first door he tried was locked. He hesitated then followed his father's earlier example. The door resisted his first onslaught, but he backed off and charged again. This time it burst open and he went flying through into the cabin beyond, off balance and skidding on the magnificent Oriental rugs that covered the deck. He sprawled on the huge bed that seemed to fill half the cabin.

As he sat up and gazed at the splendour that surrounded him, he was aware of an aroma more heady than any spice he had ever smelt. The boudoir odour of a pampered woman, not merely the precious oils of flowers, procured by the perfumer's art, but blended with these the more subtle scents of skin and hair and a healthy young female body. It was so exquisite, so moving that when he stood his legs felt strangely weak under him, and he snuffed it up rapturously. It was the most delicious smell that had ever set his nostrils a-quiver.

Sword in hand he gazed around the cabin, only vaguely aware of the rich tapestries and silver vessels filled with sweetmeats, dried fruits and potpourri. The dressing table against the port bulkhead was covered with an array of cut glass cosmetic and perfume bottles with stoppers of chased silver. He moved across to it. Laid out beside the bottles was a set of silver-backed brushes and a tortoiseshell comb. Trapped between the teeth of the comb was a single strand of hair, long as his arm, fine as a silk thread.

Hal lifted the comb to his face as though it were a holy relic. There was that entrancing odour again, that giddy woman's smell. He wound the hair about his finger and freed it from the teeth of the comb, then reverently tucked it into the pocket of his stained and sweat-stinking shirt.

At that moment there came a soft but heartbreaking sob from behind the gaudy Chinese screen across one end of the cabin.

"Who's there?" Hal challenged, cutlass poised. "Come out or I'll thrust home."

There was another sob, more poignant than the last. "By all the saints, I mean it!" Hal stalked towards the screen.

He slashed at the screen, slicing through one of the painted panels. At the force of the blow it toppled and crashed to the deck. There was a terrified shriek, and Hal stood gaping at the wondrous creature who knelt, cowering, in the corner of the cabin.

Her face was buried in her hands, but the mass of shining hair that tumbled to the deck glowed like freshly minted gold escudos, and the skirts spread around were the blue of a swallow's wings.

"Please, madam!" Hal whispered. "I mean you no ill. Please do not cry." His words had no effect. Clearly they were not understood and, inspired by the moment, Hal switched into Latin. "You need not fear- You are safe. I will not harm you.

The shining head lifted. She had understood. He looked into her face, and it was as though he had received a charge of grape shot in the centre of his chest. The pain was so intense that he gasped aloud.

He had never dreamed that such beauty could exist.

"Mercy!" she whispered pitifully in Latin. "Please do not harm me." Her eyes were liquid and brimming, but her tears served only to enhance their magnitude and intensify their iridescent violet. Her cheeks were blanched to the translucent lustre of alabaster, and the tears upon them gleamed like tiny seed pearls.

"You are beautiful," Hal said, still in Latin. His voice sounded like that of a victim on the rack, breathless and agonized. He was tortured by emotions that he had never dreamed existed. He wanted to protect and cherish this woman, to keep her for ever for himself, to love and worship her. All the words of chivalry, which, until he looked upon her, he had read and mouthed but never truly understood, rushed to his tongue demanding utterance, but he could only stand and stare.

Then he was distracted by another soft sound from behind him. He spun round, cutlass at the ready. From under the satin sheets that trailed over the edge of the huge bed crawled a porcine figure. The back and belly were so well larded as to wobble with every movement the man made. Rolls of fat swaddled the back of his neck and hung down his pendulous jowls. "Yield yourself!" Hal bellowed, and prodded him with the point of the blade. The Governor screamed shrilly and collapsed on the deck. He wriggled like a puppy.

"Please do not kill me. I am a rich man," he sobbed, also in Latin. "I will pay any ransom."

"Get up!" Hal prodded him again, but Petrus van de Velde had only enough strength and courage to reach his knees. He knelt there, blubbering.

"Who are you?"

"I am the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, and this lady is my wife."

These were the most terrible words Hal had ever heard spoken. He stared at the man aghast. The wondrous lady he already loved with his very life was married and to this grotesque burlesque of a man who knelt before him.

"My father-in-law is a director of the Company, one of the richest and most powerful merchants in Amsterdam. He will pay he will pay anything. Please do not kill us."

The words made little sense to Hal. His heart was breaking. Within moments he had gone from wild elation to the depths of the human spirit, from soaring love to plunging despair.