The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [45]
MEANWHILE, CLAIRE HAS been enjoying the hospitality of Father Fogden. The delights of conversation regarding hidden caves, maroons (escaped slaves), blind fish, and dead sheep are interrupted, however, by the priest’s revelation that a ship has run aground during the recent storm, quite nearby. Catching a reference among his imprecations to the “one-handed” man captaining the ship, Claire realizes that the ship in question cannot be the Porpoise—but just might be the Artemis.
It is indeed the Artemis, captained by Fergus, the original captain having been washed overboard during the shipwreck. Claire’s delight in being reunited with her companions fades considerably upon her realization that Jamie is not with them. Anxiety as to his whereabouts is relieved shortly, though; the repairs to the Artemis are interrupted by a visit from troops sent from the garrison in Cap-Haïtien to inspect—and “salvage”—the wreck, under the command of one Captain Alessandro—a tall soldier with a red beard and a remarkably familiar aspect.
The bewildered garrison soldiers are overpowered and imprisoned in the hold (to be put ashore once the Artemis is safely afloat), and the bedraggled company reunited once more—save for Young Ian. Seizing the opportunity offered by circumstance, Marsali presses Jamie to keep his promise; they are ashore in the Indies, with a priest to hand—he must keep his word and allow her and Fergus to be married, she says.
Seeing the young couple’s devotion and determination, Jamie reluctantly assents, and a wedding takes place.
“I’ve told Marsali she must write to her mother to say she’s wed,” Jamie murmured to me as we watched the preparations on the beach go forward. “But perhaps I shall suggest she doesna say much more about it than that.”
I saw his point. Laoghaire was not going to be pleased at hearing that her eldest daughter had eloped with a one-handed ex-pickpocket twice her age. Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been performed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced—if not actually defrocked—priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep—all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion—and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempting to copulate with Murphy’s wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire’s view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony.
Taking command of the Artemis, Jamie resumes the interrupted search for his nephew among the islands of the West Indies, making inquiries of the network of Scottish Freemasons on the islands, and acquiring in the process a profitable cargo of bat guano, much prized among the planters for use as fertilizer.
With the hold full of this valuable substance, the Artemis presses on toward Jamaica. En route, though, they are rammed at night by a strange ship, and boarded by pirates. Claire and Marsali take refuge in the hold, but are surprised by a marauding pirate. Claire attacks the pirate with a blade from her surgical kit, cutting off one of his toes and allowing Marsali to escape. Fleeing out of the hold and upward into the ship’s shrouds, she is pursued and trapped; waiting with eyes closed for the final slash of the cutlass, she hears a strange sound:
There was a sort of thump, a sharp grunt, and a strong smell of fish.
I opened my eyes. The pirate was gone. Ping An was sitting on the crosstrees, three feet away, crest erect with irritation, wings half spread to keep his balance.
“Gwa!” he said crossly. He turned a beady little yellow eye on me and clacked his bill in warning. Ping An hated noise and commotion. Evidently, he didn’t like Portuguese pirates, either.
The fight below is over; the pirate ship is moving away. Clinging to