"She's going down, Cap'n!" Sandy shouted again as the frigate's bow nosed downward. The damaged lines and sails flapping in the wind, the Sultana rolled and her crew with her. Water surged over the railing, taking crew, shattered mast, and everyone with it.
Elyse was thrown into the water. She could see light above her as she was pulled under. She fought it... fought as she had as a child a long time ago, as the ship crashed upon the rocks and was then torn apart.
She was falling. The water closed around her, filling her mouth as she tried to scream, choking her...
Revengecame about.
"Cap'n!" Kimo pointed out across the water as the crew of the Sultana released lifeboats while others scrambled over the side of the sinking ship as what was left of the center mast swung crazily over the deck, sweeping everything, including a slender figure, overboard with it.
"Lower the landing boat!" Sandy ordered as Elyse was plunged into the water and disappeared beneath the surface.
Tobias shouted when Zach would have gone to the landing boat. "You've lost too much blood, you'll never make it." He shot a glance past Zach to Kimo. Before Zach could argue, his crewman was already over the side of theRevenge. He didn't wait for the boat, but instead swam toward the Sultana, then dove beneath the surface.
Kimo surfaced, and then went down twice more. The next time he came to the surface he had her and swam toward the landing boat as it rode the waves close by.
"She's alive," Tobias announced once Kimo was able to bring her aboard theRevenge.
He didn't understand how it was possible. From the time she was swept overboard until the time Kimo brought her to the surface was too long. He'd know of men who drowned in less time.
She was alive, but barely, full of more sea water than the Sultana, he would wager, as he stepped into the role of physician once more, gently peeling the clothes from her, then wrapping her in warm blankets with Zach standing over him, about to collapse from what they'd been through.
"You'll do her no good if the bleeding starts again," Tobias told him as he turned Elyse on her side so that any remaining water would be brought up. He'd already made a quick examination and determined that she had no outward injuries from her time in the ocean or in the hands of El Barracuda.
"Leave," Zach replied. "I'll care for her myself."
Tobias shook his head, he didn't leave. By his experience, she would probably never waken, but he wasn't about to argue the matter with him and have another dead patient on his hands.
He stayed with her when he wasn't topside seeing to the running of the ship. He bathed her, gently eased the soup past her lips that cook prepared, and held her.
"Lys."
It was a whisper at first. Like a breath of wind that filled the sails, or water gently lapping against the hull of the ship.
It slipped through the darkness, back across the years, across time. A memory so strong he could almost touch it.
"Come back to me," he whispered.
Twenty-One
The Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and then along the southern tip of India. For weeks they sailed, making port only when fresh water and food was needed.
Now, they'd left land far behind three days earlier. The next land they would see, weeks ahead, would be the coast of the Australian continent. The ocean was vast, filled with tiny phosphorescent creatures that glowed in the waves at night, forming a soft, blue-green cloud in the water about the ship. Flying fish played about the ship, along with porpoises and dolphins. Exotic Portuguese man-of-war often floated on the surface. And, of course, there was Sebastian, the brilliant green and red macaw who screeched obscenities.
It was a place apart, a small private world aboard theRevenge,where faces and smiles had become dearly familiar.
No one spoke of it, but Elyse knew by the way Zach drove the crew that Jerrold was there—a rumor, his ship seen—relentless, closing the distance. Days, weeks, but he would come. She found herself watching for sails on the distant horizon along with the rest of the crew. And all of this was happening because of a need for a revenge that she didn't understand.
With Tobias’ care, Zach gradually recovered from the wound he'd received in Lisbon, and she recovered from sinking of the Sultana.
There were parts of it all that she still didn't remember, and other things that were so vivid from her time in the water that it was almost frightening, as if it happened all over again, the same as when she was a child. No matter how much she wanted to deny the things Zamora had told her, there was so much of it that simply could not be explained away.
She returned to the cabin she had occupied before. Zach made no protest, but she often found him watching her, his gaze fastened on her as if he was searching for something that she knew they both struggled with—something that would explain all of it—another life, another chance, but where would it now end with Jerrold determined to hunt them both down.
Repairs were made aboardRevengefrom the confrontation with the Sultana, even as they put more and more ocean behind them.
There was little for her to do, and she had taken to the most mundane everyday chores simply to keep herself busy: picking up cast off clothes that needed to be laundered, clearing the chart table of plates of food where Zach met with Sandy, or pulling a book from the shelves behind the chart table to read.
She was surprised at the variety of books she found there. There were two by Herman Melville, includingMoby Dick.She'd read it years earlier and started it again. With much time on her hands, she read a lot.
