Dead water - Barbara Hambly [116]
“That's very kind of you,” said January as Rose moved aside to let the young man into the already crowded stateroom. “As it happens, I suspect my master is ill rather than drunk. There was no liquor in the stateroom, and, as you can see, no smell of it.” He took the bottle proffered and sniffed the cork. “What's in it?”
“A distilled vegetable elixir known to the ancient sages of Persia and India,” replied Quince helpfully.
“Known to the Old Man of the Mountains, anyway,” remarked Rose, taking a sniff of the cork, but she spoke in Latin and January—who had also detected the unmistakable pong, not of the Old Man of the Mountains' legendary hashish but of more modern laudanum—carefully schooled his face not to laugh.
The vibration in the deck was easing as the engine stopped. Gleet yelled, “You bucks get that wood on deck fast as you can, hear?” and footfalls thudded dimly down below.
“As if one can smell anything,” added Quince, his handsome face set in a grimace, “over the stench of poor Weems. It is absolutely disgraceful that we were so long delayed in taking his body to Mayersville. I cannot think what state it will be in, to be returned to Philadelphia for burial. I have asked to be moved—it will serve Mr. Tredgold right if no one is able to occupy that chamber ever again. All Molloy's fault, and Tredgold's, for letting a pilot ride roughshod over him in that fashion. I have taken it on myself to write to Weems's family. . . .”
“Did you know Weems?” asked January. “Before last Monday, that is?”
Rose raised her eyebrows at the question, but Quince replied without hesitation, “Not well. I saw him, of course, at the meetings at Brotherhood Hall—the Philosophical Antislavery League. But I suspect he was only a dabbler. He ceased to come, oh, four or five years ago. I was not surprised,” he added primly, “to learn that he had submerged his principles in his quest for pecuniary advancement in the slaveholding states.”
“But he did go to Abolitionist meetings in Philadelphia?”
“Oh, yes. It's funny—well, not really funny—but queer, in connection with those meetings . . .” Jack Quince laughed self-consciously, and ran a hand through his smooth black hair, rendering his face suddenly boyish. “I could have sworn there was another old acquaintance from them here on this boat, and I was much chagrined to discover how wrong I was. What curious tricks the Deity plays upon humankind to be sure!”
“What was that?” asked January, leaning his elbow on the side of the bunk and looking absorbed in fascination.
“Well, when I first saw that dreadful Mr. Cain, I could have sworn that he was one of the speakers at those Brotherhood Hall meetings. In fact, I mentioned the matter to Weems, and asked him if Cain didn't look exactly like Judas Bredon, except for the beard. Imagine my embarrassment when I discovered that not only was Cain not an Abolitionist, but that he was actually a slave-dealer, a trafficker in—”
From somewhere close—down on the bow-deck, January thought—came the unmistakable crack of a pistol, followed by a woman's scream.
An instant later Souter's voice rose in panic. “Pirates! In the wood-yard—” and was cut off mid-sentence by the bark of another gun. Then all hell broke loose.
A fusillade of gunfire crackled from the bow-deck. A man howled in agony, a woman screamed something in German, and the whole vessel shuddered and heaved.
January said, “Stay here,” grabbed Hannibal's pistol from the floor beside the bunk, and darted from the stateroom, whose door was promptly slammed behind him—he heard Quince's wailing protest, “But he told us to stay here!” as he raced along the