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“Yes. Before the white man stole me away and threw me away
like so much filthy refuse when his abuse made me ill.”
Hawkins shook his head. A thousand doubloons were enough to
purchase and outfit a modest ship of his own. With hard work, and
careful investment, he could propel his family to a life of comfort.
“I- I don’t know how to thank you,” he said.
“Don’t bother,” the captain replied. “I am Amir of the Al-Jaza’.
Recompense is my duty.”
He clapped Hawkins on the shoulder.
“Come. It is time for you to leave us.”
For a moment, Hawkins thought it had been a treachery after all.
But the captain’s smile reassured him that all was well.
The Adeline’s decks were deserted. The negroes had taken shelter
below. The gale whistled wrathfully through the rigging, driving
torrents of rain nearly horizontally across the desk, the masts and
spars groaning piteously beneath the vicious assault. The waves
crashed over the gunwales, until it seemed the Adeline sailed not upon
the sea, but beneath her, within her. No hand at her helm, she lurched,
and rolled, and beat about from crest to trough like a kit set upon by a
rabid hound.
For the second time that day, Hawkins heard the grisly screeching
of coral biting into wood, and with a tremendous wrench the Adeline
jarred to a halt. A deafening crack came from the bow, and the
foremast sheered clean off, tumbling to the deck with a fearful crash.
A knot of sailors emerged from below, carrying Hawkins’s
rucksack and an oilcloth bag of provisions. They hurried him to the
longboat, and he climbed in, stowing his meager belongings in the
locker and lashing it closed. The pirate captain leaned forward to
clasp his hand.
“Best of luck, my friend. Ma salama!”
“Farewell!” Hawkins cried as they lowered him down into the
seething waves. He watched their figures recede into the grey mist
until he could no longer make them out. The longboat bucked
mightily in the surging chop, and it was all he could do to keep from
being thrown into the sea, but already the wind was letting up, the rain
slackening.
Somehow, he knew, he would be picked up leagues away, safe
and sound, having miraculously weathered one of the worst storms in
the history of the Caribbean in an open dory. Words formed in his
mind, and he saw himself telling a circle of American midshipman
how the Adeline had thrown herself upon the rocky reefs as though
determined to drown them all. Telling them how the first longboat had
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