Zach looked at his second mate. "The Sultana?"
"Put to sea this mornin', under heavy sail."
Zach nodded. "Prepare to get under way now."
A look passed between Sandy and Tobias.
"Now," Zach repeated."
When Sandy had gone to carry out his orders, Tobias looked at him sharply. "You're in no condition to do this." He knew what it meant, a bloody confrontation with El Barracuda, if they could catch him.
"The gold isn't even aboard any longer." Tobias knew well enough that Zach had it transferred under cover of darkness.
"What will you do, buy it back? And go to your death to do this?"
Zach fixed him with a long look. "You are my friend and more, as much a father as I have ever known. God knows, I owe you my life for your care, but this is something I will do. If you cannot, I understand, and Sandy can have you taken to the docks."
"Is she worth it?" Tobias demanded, but he knew the answer even as he asked it. He saw it in those eyes that darkened like a storm over water.
Orders were given to the crew. A late morning breeze picked up, and it filled the sails as they were unfurled. They hoisted the anchor andRevengemoved like a swift bird across the water toward the open sea.
Elyse squinted at the glaring light thrust in front of her face. She cried out as she was pulled to her feet, tripped from ropes that bound her ankles, and fell to her knees in the slime-filled water in the bowels of the ship.
She tried to break her fall with her bound hands, her fingers sinking into the filth and sludge at the bottom of the hold. Then she was pulled upright by a hand at the back of her shirt. Always it was the same—no food, only foul water, and only the crudest means of relieving herself.
"Now, missy, we'll try again," came the voice from behind the hand that held the lantern.
"Tell me about the gold aboard theRevenge?"
Elyse shook her head. The same question had been asked countless times, and she had given the same answer.
"I don't know," she croaked from between dry, parched lips. She was so exhausted, but she'd give them no satisfaction.
"I don't know anything." She'd die before she'd tell them the truth, and she was certain death would come. She was so weak she could barely stand. She hadn't eaten since she'd left Zamora's, and the crew of theSultanaweren't about to offer her anything.
Her thoughts blurred, but she tried to hold on to just one. If she gave in to the bone-aching weariness she might let something slip and tell them—that the gold was no longer aboard theRevenge.
She'd been a fool to leave the old woman's house. She knew that, but it was small comfort to her now.
El Barracuda. She'd heard the name before. The man was the worst sort, a pirate feared by other pirates. His men had almost killed Zach at the tavern. She wouldn't give him any information. It was a small revenge, but she was determined to have it.
She forced back the sob that would have been so easy as she thought of Zach. Was he still alive?
In the two days since she'd been taken captive she'd thought of nothing else, with Zamora's words tormenting her.
"There will come a time when the dream becomes real... another time and place, another life. You must choose what you will believe."
The light from the lantern glared in her eyes. She was so tired. The questions had been constant, never allowing her more than a few minutes' rest before starting again.
The faces of the two men blurred and then disappeared and she was sinking into a place where there was no more hunger or bone-aching weariness, only the sound of the water and the darkness that wrapped around her. She shivered. It was dark and she was so cold.
'Don't leave me!'She didn't know if she said it or dreamed it. She was a child again and it was so dark, and there was water everywhere...
"I will find you..."
Then Zamora's words whispered through the darkness."If you refuse to believe what I have told you, you will never find each other again, not in this or any other lifetime."
There were other memories—the night of the party, the trip to Fair View, a portrait and a stained-glass window, blood everywhere and she was screaming...
