The covenant - James A. Michener [52]
'It has,' the fat sheriff said, and as he stepped aboard the Acorn he counted out the five pieces of silver for each of the condemned men. 'Now the delivery. Captain Saltwood, I want you to appreciate the rogues you're getting.' And as the manacled prisoners came awkwardly aboard, chains dangling, the soldier read out their crimes: 'He stole a horse. A cutpurse. He committed murder, twice. He robbed a church. He ate another man's apples. He stole a cloak . . .' Each man had been sentenced to death, but at the solicitation of Captain Saltwood, who needed their passage money, execution had been stayed.
'Have you granted them equipment to found their colony?' Saltwood asked.
'Throw them ashore,' the sheriff said. 'If they survive, it's to the honor of the king. If they perish, what's lost?' With that the four soldiers climbed into the cart and pulled the wheezing sheriff in behind them.
'Run up the blue pennant,' Saltwood told his mate, and when it fluttered in the breeze the ironmonger hurried down to the ship with his nineteen crates of tools badly needed in the distant islands.
As soon as the Acorn stood out from harbor, Saltwood ordered his carpenter to strike off the manacles, and when the convicts were freed he assembled them before the mast: 'During this trip I hold the power of life and death. If you work, you eat and are assured of justice. If you plot against this ship, you feed the sharks.' But as he was about to dismiss the unfortunates, he realized that they must be bewildered by what might happen to them, and he said reassuringly, 'If you conduct yourselves well, I shall seek the most clement coast in all the seas. And when the moment comes to disembark, I shall provide you with such equipment for survival as we can spare.'
'Where?' one of the men asked.
'Only God knows,' Saltwood said, and for the next ninety days the Acorn sailed slowly southward through seas it had never traversed before, and the heavens showed stars which none had ever seen. The prisoners worked and partook of such food as the regular crew received, but always Saltwood kept his pistols ready, his defenses against mutiny prepared.
On the ninety-first day out, the Acorn sighted St. Helena, where the condemned men prayed to be set ashore, but a congenial port like this was not the intended destination, so the convicts were kept under close guard while the ship was provisioned, and after four restful days the Acorn headed south.
On May 23, in rough weather, the little ship, barely visible against the massiveness of Africa, stood off the sandy beach north of Table Mountain, for it was here that Captain Saltwood proposed to cast his convicts ashore. But before he did so, he gave them a selection of implements from one of the crates of tools, and his men contributed food and spare clothes for the apprehensive settlers.
'Be of good cheer,' Saltwood advised the convicts. 'Select one of your group to serve as leader, that you may subdue the land quickly.'
'Won't you sail closer to the shore?' one of the men asked.
'This coast looks dangerous,' Saltwood said, 'but you shall have this little boat.'
As the convicts climbed down into the frail craft he called, 'Establish a good colony so that your children may prosper under the English flag.'
'Where will we find women?' the impertinent murderer called.
'Men always find women,' Captain Saltwood cried, and he watched as the criminals manned the oars and rowed ineffectively toward the shore. When a tall wave came, they could not negotiate it; the boat capsized and all were drowned. Captain Saltwood shook his head: 'They had their chance.' And he watched with real regret as his boat shattered on the inhospitable beach.
But this voyage of the Acorn was not remembered for its loss of the ten convicts, because such accidents were commonplace and barely reported in London. When the stormy seas subsided, men from the ship went ashore at the Cape proper, and one of the first things they did was check the area for post-office stones; they found five, each with its parcel