Corsair Read Online Free Page B

think of it.”
    He went to the companionway and shouted for John Lobb, the mate of the Griffin . Lobb, a Man of Kent and former poacher, came down to the cabin and stood listening while Ned gave him Leclerc’s news and orders to get the Griffin under way within an hour.
    As soon as Lobb had gone back on deck, Aurelia asked: “Why has the governor decided to close the brothels? He sounds more like a Puritan!”
    “I’m damned sure he was one, until the Restoration,” Ned said crossly. “He complains that his wife is offended by the sight of the brothels.”
    Aurelia laughed softly. “Has anyone told her that both the leader of the buccaneers and his second-in-command have mistresses on board their ships?”
    But Ned did not laugh. Instead he said: “Don’t use the word ‘mistress’ like that. I want to marry you; it’s you that insist we build a church in Port Royal first. And Diana may be Thomas’ mistress, but he can’t marry her while that dreadful wife of his stays alive in London.”
    Aurelia grinned mischievously. “You know, chéri , you always get upset whenever I say I’m your mistress, but I love being your mistress. I am free to run away with a handsome man like Leclerc, or I can stay with you. Why, I’d just love to run away with Leclerc: I’d make him clean up that ship, wash and shave himself regularly, wear clean clothes: you’d never recognize him.”
    “Women are the Puritans: they always want to reform a man,” Ned protested. “Leclerc is quite happy, gross and grubby, unshaven and looking as though he has slept in his clothes for a month. He doesn’t want to be scrubbed and polished. Probably some wife or mistress in the past overdid the scrubbing, and his present state is a protest.”
    “Perhaps. Meanwhile,” she added, “Port Royal hasn’t got a proper church!”
    “Oh yes, that came up at the legislative council, too. O’Leary, the chandler, asked Luce if he thought that once the brothels were closed the buccaneers would go to a church, if there was one. That led to Thomas suggesting that Luce should pay for a church.”
    Ned started to unroll a chart on the table in the cabin. “Thomas pointed out that the buccaneers have brought a lot of treasure into Jamaica, and if old Luce will pay for a church, good luck to him: it’ll save me the expense.” He began plotting the direct course to Riohacha. With the trade winds usually blowing from the east or north-east, they should be able to stretch over to Riohacha without tacking. And Riohacha was one of the easier landfalls to make on the Main: the big range of mountains with the very high peak in the middle (the Pico Cristobal Colon, the Spanish called it) ended a few miles west of the port.
    “I’ll be glad to be at sea again,” Aurelia said. “We’ve been in port too long.”
    “But we’ve been busy building the house,” Ned said crossly. “Damnation, do you want a house or a ship? While we are up in the hills building the house, you want to be at sea. When we are at sea you want to be building a house.”
    Aurelia laughed and clapped her hands together. “ Chéri , that’s why I fascinate you: you can never guess how I’m going to be. Just think, supposing I was a fat and cheerful wife, always laughing at your old jokes, always wanting the same things, always content, always predictable . You would soon be bored, mon chéri . Oh so bored.”
     
    One by one the fifteen buccaneer ships had weighed anchor in the great harbour, the pawls of their windlasses clunking monotonously as the anchor cables came home, streaming water as the pressure squeezed it out of the strands of the rope.
    Lobb gave the orders for the Griffin ’s mainsail to be hoisted, followed by the foresail, and the ship bore away, running parallel with the low sandy spit better known as the Palisadoes and ending at Gallows Point. As they passed Ned could see bodies hanging in chains from the gibbets on the Point. Not bodies now, with this heat;