The Buccaneers Read Online Free Page B

storm and, yes, He calmed the seas when Jonah was pitched over the side. But why? To save the ship? Not on your life! To save the prophet, John. God would never let the prophet drown.”
    I couldn't argue with Butterfield when it came to the Bible. He knew it back to front. Yet I could see that things had changed in the days that Horn had been aboard. Dana Mudge had become a pariah for his part in breaking the sextant. Mr. Abbey was still wallowing in gloom, and the captain was beset with worries. And now the winds were blowing harder, driving the
Dragon
on her secret course.
    Butterfield put away his sextant and his almanacs. I watched Horn's shadow tilt across the table, his arm moving with the wheel as the
Dragon
slithered through the waves.
    “What do
you
think he carries in his chest?” I asked.
    “I neither know nor care,” said he. “Now that's enough of that. If there's anyone on this ship who means any harm, it's our blasted gunner for spreading this nonsense.”
    “Yes, sir,” I said.
    “It seems the only head he's turned is yours. Now go on. I have to get my socks lashed down before Mudge takes the wheel again.”
    I left the cabin and climbed up the companion-way, two rungs at a time. At the top, I came face to face with Horn. He was looking at the sails, singing barely over his breath the song called “Heart of Oak,” the tune that navy drummersbeat as ships sail into battle:
“Cheer up, my lads, ‘tis to glory we steer—
“ Then he found me, with that quick turn of his head, and the song ended on the instant.
    “You sing as well as you steer,” I said.
    He didn't answer. The
Dragon
leaned to a puff of wind; her wheel turned, his arms cranked, and she steadied herself before it. He was a part of the ship; he
was
the ship, it seemed.
    His eyes passed over me, his gaze running down the luff of the mainsail, past me—and through me—to the wind-swollen jibs at the bowsprit. He had no thought for anything but the passage of the ship. I stepped up to the deck, anxious to hurry past him.
    “She talks, doesn't she, Mr. Spencer?”
    It was only an idle phrase, surely, the old idea that a ship could speak to a helmsman through the sound of her wood and rope, and tell him what trim she liked. But I thought of Turner Crowe, who'd met his death swinging from her halyards on my first voyage aboard the
Dragon.
He'd believed the schooner had a soul trapped inside her, the spirit of his son, which spoke to him at times in the creak of the
Dragon’
s planks.
    “What does she say?” I asked.
    “Why, what every ship says,” said Horn. “Every ship and every sailor. That she'd like to run forever where the water's deep and blue. That she's scared of the land. And if she had her fancy, she'd never see it again.”
    It was almost like poetry, coming from Horn. The Jonah talk seemed silly then, nothing more than the ranting of a half-mad gunner.
    But not an hour later my doubts came rushing back.
    It was Mudge who saw it. Horn had given up the wheel only moments before, and had gone forward to his spot at the mast. The captain was on deck, standing beside me at the stern. To leeward, Mr. Abbey was staring aft, down our broken and weaving path through the waves. I saw Mudge stiffen and point.
    “Land!” he cried. “I think I see land.”
    The captain groaned. “Good Lord. He'd have to be mighty farsighted for that. We've hundreds of miles to go.”
    But it did look like land. I peered past the sails and past the men who rushed to the bow, and I saw a tiny island with three bare trees that were tossing in the wind. It slipped behind the swells, then rose again, and I saw a line of surf at its shore. It vanished again, reappeared, and there seemed to be children swinging from the trees.
    Horn stood up, but he didn't go forward with the others. He looked ahead at that strange land, then turned and looked at
me.
In the whole ship he was the only soul looking back, and Abbey didn't fail to notice.
    “You'd think