As some of his men departed to search the ship, Captain Zale and his son climbed up to the quarterdeck where Captain Frisk was bound, his face red with anger.
“What are you transporting?” Captain Zale asked Captain Frisk.
“Nothing of value.”
“You lie.” Captain Zale sneered. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
“I assure you, I’m only transporting livestock and victuals.”
“Where are you bound?”
“Nassau.”
Captain Zale stepped close to Captain Frisk, towering over him, and said, “If you’re lying, you’ll rue the day you tried to fool me. My men will burn this ship to the waterline if need be.”
For a heartbeat, Captain Frisk stared at the pirate, but then his shoulders stooped, and he said, “You’ll find a chest of gold under the trapdoor beneath my bed.”
Captain Zale’s lip came up in a satisfied snarl. “That’s more like it.” He yelled to his men, “Get the gold and then let’s be gone. Take anything you can carry.”
While a handful of pirates stayed on the main deck to keepthe crew of theAdventurerin sight, others swarmed the ship and began to haul off anything they could find. Boxes, barrels, and bags of food were taken from the hold.
“I’m looking for crew members,” Captain Zale said as he walked down from the quarterdeck, scanning Captain Frisk’s sailors. “If you’d like to join my crew, step forward. I run my ship as a democracy, where every man has a vote and a share of the prizes we earn. You will eat like kings and not have to toil for another man’s profit. Each of the men you see on my ship were once like you, living under the yoke of oppression. But now they are free.”
The sailors I had worked with for the past three weeks said nothing, all of them staring down at the deck. No one was offering to join ranks with a pirate.
Captain Zale waited for a moment and then said, “If that’s the way you want it, then I’ll choose which of you are coming with us.”
I tried desperately not to fidget as he walked among us.
“You,” he said as he pulled one of the men forward by the front of his shirt. “And you,” he said, pointing at another.
I held my breath as he walked past Timothy.
“You’re young and strong and teachable,” Captain Zale said as he put his finger against Timothy’s chest. “You’ll do.”
He started to walk again and then stopped in front of me. I looked down at his boots, praying that he wouldn’t force me to leave theAdventurer. I was so close to Nassau, I could feel the answers to my questions at my fingertips.
“You,” he said, putting his fist under my chin and forcing me to look up at him.
I tried not to cower, but I couldn’t help it. He was older than I first guessed, with sea-wizened wrinkles around his gray eyes and silver streaking his hair.
“How old are you, boy?” he asked me.
I swallowed and tried to find my voice, but it came out in a strange squeak. “Fourteen.”
“We could use another cabin boy,” Captain Zale said. “You’re coming with me.”
I shook my head hard. “Please.” I tried desperately to remember the voice I’d been using as Carl Baldwin. “I need to go to Nassau.”
Captain Zale growled. “Get on board my ship! I won’t tolerate any back talk from you, either.”
One of Captain Zale’s men grabbed me by the arm. I tried to break free, but there was nowhere to run.
“Don’t put up a fight,” Harry said to me. “Just begone. Don’t give them reason to beat ye.”
My eyes widened. Would these men beat me? And what if they found out I was a woman? What else might they do to me?
The binding around my chest felt dangerously close to coming loose, so I stopped struggling and allowed the man to haul me across the deck.
