Page 25 of Empire of Shadows

He looked curious, and perhaps a little challenging—but not defeated, Ellie thought with a little chill.

No—he did not look at all like a man whose hopes had just been dashed.

He tipped his hat like a fencer acknowledging a fine parry. Then he was gone, the dark point of him vanishing like a ghost as the ship glided free of the dock and London receded behind her.

?

Five

Noon

April 22, 1898

Approaching Belize Town

At the end ofEllie’s second week on board the steamerSalerno,the green shoreline of British Honduras finally came into view.

The ship had been decidedly short on books, save for a Bible and a catalog of steamer routes. Ellie had gone through the timetables assiduously to calculate how quickly Jacobs might manage to follow her.

Jacobs had seen the boat Ellie had boarded back in London, so it would be little trouble for him to determine where she had gone. Thankfully, direct sailings from England to British Honduras took place only once a month. If Jacobs didn’t want to wait that long, he would have to take a ship to New York, then train overland to New Orleans in order to pick up the weekly mail boat to the colony. That journey would take him roughly six days longer than Ellie’s more direct route.

All of which meant that Ellie had at least six days to find a guide and abscond to the interior before Jacobs could possibly catch up to her.

On the two-week journey across the Atlantic, Ellie had plenty of time to consider what would need to be done if the map really did lead to a set of undiscovered ruins. Thorough documentation of any potential historical significance was the key to protecting such a find from ne’er-do-wells like Jacobs.

Ellie would submit her findings to both the colonial authorities and the academic journals. In doing so, she would clearly establish the importance of the site and the need for its ongoing investigation and protection.

She was still mulling over which of the journals she would approach first. The most respectable ones were also the ones most likely to balk at accepting a submission from a woman.

Ellie was also aware that her efforts, if successful, might very well force the world to finally accept her as an archaeologist and scholar—and why not? She had all the training and education required for the job. That she was excluded from the field purely on the basis of her gender was the rankest injustice.

If she were able to crack open the resistant nut of the British scientific establishment, perhaps it would become easier for other women to follow her. The thought added wind to her sails.

Of course, all of that depended upon whether or not anything worth finding actually lay at the end of her map.

British Honduras’s capital, Belize Town, lacked a proper harbor. TheSalernowas forced to anchor two miles from the long, verdant shoreline. The passengers and freight were then shuttled to land by a flotilla of little rowboats and fishing craft, which wove through the dotted coral reefs and cays with obvious expertise. The little islets were lined with stretches of golden sand that bordered thick green forests dotted with colorful flowers and towering palms.

Beneath the ferry, the water was so clear that Ellie could see straight through it to the bits of shell and coral lying on the mud and sand of the sea floor.

The air was warm as a caress, and the sunlight like liquid gold. Ellie soaked up the pure pleasure of both as the sailboat ferrying her and the other passengers approached the colorful buildings that lined Belize Town’s waterfront.

As they approached the town, Ellie’s hand moved instinctively to the front of her blouse. She could just feel the subtle curve of the medallion beneath the fabric. She had strung the artifact from the psalter along a piece of ribbon trimmed out of an otherwise frivolous nightdress, which Constance had thrown into her valise. The weight of the disk was cool against her skin despite the warmth of the day. Wearing the stone rather than simply concealing it among the rest of her things feltright.

The map was tucked into an opening Ellie had picked in the lining of her practical, comfortable corset. When she moved, she could feel the added stiffness of the parchment against her skin.

The river mouth that served as Belize Town’s harbor was busy with brightly painted barges and fishing boats. Ellie disembarked and filed onto the customs wharf with the other passengers, where the agent on duty submitted each of them to a cursory examination.

Ellie stepped up to the man’s desk as her turn in the queue arrived.

“Where will you be staying?” the agent asked. His English was inflected with a warm, musical rhythm.

“I hadn’t quite worked that out yet,” Ellie admitted.

“There are two hotels in Belize Town. The Imperial caters to most of our overseas visitors. You will be most comfortable there,” the agent assured her.

His description sparked a burst of alarm. Ellie had little desire to be shut up with a bunch of colonial administrators. They were all likely to be Englishmen, and Englishmen were prone to thinking that they knew best what a woman ought to be doing with herself. They were usually quite happy to impose those opinions on any female unfortunate enough to be in their vicinity.

“You said there were two hotels,” Ellie quickly cut in. “What about the other one?”

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