Page 6 of A Captain For Clarissa
“No, he’s too greedy. If he thinks for one moment he might be able to keep it, he won’t throw it away. He does not know who captains this ship; does not know we have met before.” Rafael smiled, showing his teeth. “Last time we met, I was aboard a British Navy ship, and we had to break off, let Khadra go, because a French warship hove into view. This time? This time, I’ll have that thieving slave-runner in irons.”
The corsair was lowering sails now in obedience to the bosun’s increasingly irate shouts, and the first mate turned away from Rafael to order their own sails lowered.
In just a few minutes, the two ships lay still in the water, side by side, and Rafael stepped up to the rail.
“Where,” he said, in his own language, “is Ghazi Khadra?”
He saw the shock run through the men facing him. Saw the bluster go out of them, as his men sighted down their rifles at the corsairs. There was no pretending they were honest traders if Rafael knew Ghazi Khadra was their captain.
“?adremt!“ a deep voice bellowed. “Fight, you cowards!” but the corsairs were woefully under-prepared, most of them armedonly with pistols and rusty blades. A few of them rushed forward, there was a brief blast of gunfire, and five corsair bodies fell to the deck.
“Would you like to try that again?” Rafael said urbanely, “or shall we just stop wasting time, Khadra?”
The corsair captain sidled out from behind his men, his ugly, scarred face a mask of fury. “Who are you, whelp?” he hissed in bad Portuguese.
“You don’t remember me?” Rafael switched smoothly to English. “How about now?”
Khadra’s eyes widened, and he looked in puzzlement at Rafael’s coat.
“Indeed, the last time we met, I wore the coat of the British Navy,” Rafael enlightened him. “Now I sail for my own King and country. Keeping the Mediterranean clean of corsair scum.”
Khadra spat on the deck. One of his men spoke to him in a low voice, gesturing to Rafael and his men, obviously trying to reason with Khadra.
“You are outnumbered and outgunned,” Rafael said calmly. “Lay down your weapons and you’ll live.”
Weapons were clattering to the floor before Khadra opened his mouth to give the order, making the corsair captain’s expression turn briefly even more murderous, before Rafael’s men began crossing to his ship to secure it.
“Search him thoroughly,” Rafael warned. “He’s probably got more knives on him than you’ve got fingers. Toss every one of them overboard, secure him, and start searching the ship.”
“You have no authority to detain us, or to search my ship!” Khadra blustered angrily as rough hands searched him, pulling knives from his sleeves, boots and even a thin blade from his long beard.
“The letters of instruction I’m carrying from seven different governments would seem to argue otherwise,” Rafael returned blandly. “Including the Dey of Algiers, incidentally. Since that’s the flag you’re flying today… I do indeed have authority over you.”
“We are a legal trader,” Khadra attempted to claim.
Even his own men looked sideways at him, and Rafael laughed aloud. “Of course, you are. Pure as new snow fall.”
“Captain!” His men were already coming up from below, beckoning to him. “We have found something you should see.”
A dozen young boys and girls were the sad sight that greeted him in a small room in the ship’s hold, each with an iron collar locked about their neck and chains securing them to the wall.
“Greek,” the bosun said quietly as Rafael scowled at the sight. “From Athens, taken from their families in the night. Destined to be sold on the block in Algiers.”
“Enough to hang Khadra, even without whatever else he’s probably smuggling. Get them loose, and over to the Santa Dorotéia.” Turning on his heel, Rafael climbed back up the narrow ladder to the upper deck. He paused before exiting the hatch as something on the rough wooden floorboards caught his eye—a scrap of white lace.
Stooping, Rafael picked up the scrap, rubbing it between his fingers. Very fine lace indeed, he thought, and his eyes narrowed. Turning, he looked around. A door stood open to his left.
Looking inside, he saw nothing out of the ordinary—a tiny, empty bunk with a rough blanket on it was the only furniture. The smell of an un-emptied chamber pot assaulted his nose, and he made a face, stepping back.
“Captain?” the bosun came up beside him.
“Someone was imprisoned in here.” Rafael pointed at the lock on the door, a rarity on a ship. There were just two aboard his own ship, the Santa Dorotéia, and they were on his own cabin and on the liquor store cupboard. “A high-value prisoner, I think. Maybe a woman.” He showed the bosun the scrap of lace. “Perhaps that was what Khadra was taking the time to hide, before showing himself.”
“If she’s here, we’ll find her, Captain,” the bosun vowed, before turning to shout orders to search the ship again.
Where would Khadra hide a woman? Rafael rubbed the scrap of lace between his fingers again. In his own quarters, he suspected, and turned his steps towards the captain’s cabin.
It was all Clarissa could manage to get enough breath into her lungs to stay conscious. One moment, she was lying on the hard bunk in her prison, the next the door had been slammed open and the corsair captain had stood over her, his eyes wide with panic.
