Ruark peered at the pirate with a cocked brow.
Harripen gave a secretive chuckle. “Just in case the dogs try to dig ‘im out.”
Ruark led him on. “ ‘Twould be a crafty rat to get from here unscathed.”
The Englishman was eager to explain. “As long as ‘ere’s a ship to sail, we’ve a way out, lad. ’Ere’s a channel through the swamp and no reefs on the other side. The Spaniards cut it through.” He stared at Ruark for a moment as the younger man accepted this silently. Then he warned, “But a man must know the way, and Mother keeps it well hidden.”
With that, the hoary buccaneer turned away and busied himself with preparations to debark, leaving Ruark to stare after him, his curiosity much aroused.
A crowd had gathered on the white sand beach, outcasts from the world trapped in this backwater way of life with little hope beyond the meanest existence. Indeed, the town could not sustain itself and survived only by servicing the corsair fleet. Vendors came with their baskets, hawking their wares, hoping the warriors would feel largess with their victory and share some of the spoils for a new bauble or a trinket. Gaudy, unwashed harlots sought any favorable glance, the bolder ones calling invitations to the crew while they revealed plump bosoms and round thighs or sauntered with cocked hips and arms akimbo. The children, few that they were, bore the vacant stares of hopelessness or the savage leers of minds already twisted into the mold of malice and greed. Running sores and scars marked the beggars and bespoke the merciless deprivation suffered on the island. They were the fortunate ones. The unfortunate were those who had been dealt a deep wound in battle or had an arm or leg severed and were dying slow and agonizing deaths in this hellish hole. These poor wretches, whose maimed, misshapened bodies wore a grimace of pain permanently on their faces, and women who were worn and abused until they looked like hags of some horrific tale stood back in mute surrender while their counterparts who still sustained a meager vigor crowded close in hopes of catching some coin, some treasure, some rejected morsel, some sharing of whatever was to be shared. Crewmen tossed coppers from the ship and guffawed as scrawny youngsters and grown men splashed into the shallows for such wealth.
Shanna’s stomach tightened and wrenched with the cruelty of it all. She had always considered herself worldly, well traveled and educated, but nothing she had seen or read had prepared her for this. A twinkling began to dawn of just why her father had so desperately desired to secure his loved ones from poverty. In the tormented faces of the children, she glimpsed her father’s despair as a youth, and something stirred deep within her consciousness, trying to surface into realization, but Shanna was too tired, too exhausted to think.
A questioning murmur rose from the bondsmen who stood near her. This place frightened them as much as it did her, and they cursed their luck to have been captured. They could expect no more than slavery here and were quick to recognize their own plight would scarce be better than that of Trahern’s daughter. As Shanna raised her gaze to them, uncertainty written heavily on her face, they quieted their grumbles. One man swore and faced away while another remarked hoarsely:
“Bloody savages they be. The devil’s own. God save us all.”
Shanna sagged wearily, setting her back to them. She knew they voiced her own apprehension. Awkwardly she brushed a wayward tress from her cheek with her bound hands. She was numb to every emotion save a gnawing fear that feasted heartily upon what courage she tried to muster. She set her mind not to appear frightened, yet her knees had a strange tendency to shake beneath her, and an uncontrollable shivering made tatters of her resolve. Just when she had won some semblance of composure, her chin quivered and the sting of tears smarted in her eyes. Despite her show of self-control, however strained, she was terribly afraid, not knowing what lay in store for her, but convinced now that the miscreants planned some hideous fate for the daughter of Trahern. The constant stares of the pirates and their bold leers when they caught her eye unnerved her considerably. Bruised and hungry, exhausted from lack of sleep, she was listless and dazed. Her head ached from the merciless sun which beat down upon her.
Disconcertedly, Shanna moved her gaze to Ruark. He stood near the fore of the ship watching as the vessel worked her way toward the crude jetty that formed a landing dock. His dark hair was stirred by the light breeze, and his broad, tanned shoulders gleamed with a fine mist of sweat. He seemed like a stranger, a man she had never known, distant, frowning as if his cares weighed upon him sorely. She felt a rising bitterness that he had trifled with her so casually, yet she also recognized the folly of the anger that had caused her to have him cast away. Had she only cooled her need for immediate revenge, she could have made him pay a thousandfold for his indiscretion. Now she had only herself to blame and must admit that he had ample cause to seek redress upon her person.