“You can put your fears to rest,” he added. “You’re too valuable to be harmed.”
“Valuable how?” Gabrielle managed to ask, coming slowly to her feet now.
“As a hostage, of course. Passengers are much more lucrative to dispose of than cargoes that might rot before we can find markets for them.”
She was starting to feel a smidgen of real relief, just enough for her to stop eyeing the railing. “What about the men?”
He shrugged. “The captain and the officers of a captured ship generally bring decent ransoms, too.”
She couldn’t tell if he was deliberately trying to put her mind at ease, or if he just liked to talk, because he proceeded to hold forth on the subject of ransoming prisoners.
Gabrielle learned that she and Margery were to be ransomed by her family. The captain never asked her if she had a family, he simply assumed that she did. It just remained for her to tell him whom to contact for the ransom money, and he seemed in no hurry to obtain that information. He and his cronies had other business to dispose of first, like the rest of the captured crew.
Gabrielle looked around the deck. If any of the crewmen had died in the battle, the evidence had been removed before she’d been dragged topside. Avery was lying on the deck, apparently unconscious from a gash on his head, tied up like the other officers and passengers, waiting to be transferred to the other ship. Theirs had sustained severe damage and was already starting to take on water.
Margery was there, too, also tied up, but she was the only prisoner who was gagged as well. She’d probably been too vocal with the pirates, chastising them for their temerity. She didn’t care whom she offended when she got the notion to complain.
As for the common sailors, they were given a choice, to join the pirates and take their oath then and there, or to pay a visit to Davy Jones’s locker, which meant they’d be tossed into the sea to drown.
Not surprisingly, most of them elected rather quickly to become pirates. One of them, a stout American, refused, and was quite nasty about it.
Gabrielle was forced to watch in horror as two of the pirates approached him, each taking one of his arms and dragging him to the rail. She didn’t doubt he was going to be tossed over it. But he didn’t change his mind and continued to curse them all right up until they smashed his head against the rail, knocking him out. The pirates laughed uproariously. She didn’t see what was the least bit funny about making the man think he was going to die, then not killing him, but those pirates certainly did.
The American was still tossed into the water, but not until the next day when there was land within sight of the ship. It was an uninhabited island, but land nonetheless. He’d probably still die eventually, but at least he was given a chance. He might even be able to hail a passing ship and get rescued. It was a better fate than what Gabrielle had thought would befall him when he’d defied the pirates.
Later that same day they came to another island, which also appeared to be deserted. They’d sailed into the crystal clear waters of a wide bay. Nearly in the center of it was another small island. But as they approached it, Gabrielle could see it wasn’t an island at all but a floating jungle of trees, many of them dead, and thick plants, most of them thriving in the dirt and other debris that was piled high on top of boards, not land. It was almost like a cluttered wharf, and yet it was a thickly built jungle, designed to conceal the ships anchored on the other side of it from any passing ships out in the ocean.
The flag of death was hoisted on the two ships that were there now, indicating that there had been disease on them, which might account for their abandoned look.
It didn’t take long for the pirates to make their own ship look the same before the small boats were lowered into the water and the prisoners were rowed to shore—and they hoisted a flag of death on their ship as well. Gabrielle realized then the ships were nothing but a ruse to keep any other vessels that might sail into the bay from investigating the abandoned ships.
“Where are we going?” Gabrielle asked the pirate who helped her and Margery out of the rowboat. But apparently he didn’t feel it was necessary to answer her. He just nudged her forward.
They began a trek inland. They weren’t waiting for everyone to get off the ship, but thankfully, Avery was in the first group to go ashore. It was the first chance she’d had to talk to him since they’d been captured.
“Are you all right?” he asked as he walked alongside her.
“Yes, I’m fine,” she assured him.
“No one…touched you?”
“Really, Avery, I haven’t been hurt in any way.”
“Thank God. I was so worried. You can’t imagine.”
She gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m to be ransomed. Captain Brillaird made it clear to me that I’m too valuable to be harmed. She pointed to the large open cut on his forehead. “How does your head feel? I saw you got knocked out yesterday.”
He gingerly touched his wound. “Oh, that’s just a scratch.”
But Gabrielle could tell from his wince that it must be painful. “From what I gathered from the captain, he plans to ransom you, too.”
“I don’t know about that,” Avery replied with a sigh. “I don’t come from a wealthy family.”
“Well, I’ll speak to my father when he collects me,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to arrange something to gain your release as well.”
But she wasn’t the least bit sure that Nathan could even be located. What would happen to her and Avery if the pirates couldn’t track down her father?
“That’s very kind of you,” he said, then added urgently, “but listen to me, Gabrielle. You may have been given assurances, but from listening to this pirate crew, I understand there will be others of the same ilk where we’re going. Your best way to come through this safely is to simply not draw attention to yourself. I know that will be difficult, as beautiful as you are, but—”
