"We shall see who comes out the worse in this encounter, Jacky Faber," he says as he and his brother finally rise. "You see, we have the back door covered, as well..."
I let my face fall a bit at this.
"...and the alleyways all about. And, if you think to stay inside the Rising Sun indefinitely, then think again, you perfidious little bandit, for tomorrow morning I shall go see a magistrate who owes me a great many favors. He will issue a warrant for your arrest on a charge of slave-stealing, and the police will come in here to nab you and hand you over to me. Ah, I see by your face you do not like the sound of that."
Smirking, he and Pierre take their hats from the rack, put them on, and head for the door.
"Au revoir, ma petite salope," Jean Lafitte says with a mock bow. "I go now to my bed, a bed you will shortly find very familiar, if not all that restful. I look forward to the occasion." And the Lafittes leave.
It is closing time, so I help the others put away the gear in the gaming room and then go up to Mam'selle's room.
"So did it work, Precious?" she asks upon seeing me.
"Like a charm, Mam'selle. Unbutton me, if you would."
I pull off the wig and toss it onto the bed, as I feel Mam'selle's fingers working the buttons on the back of my dress.
"Oh, Precious, I'm gonna hate to see you go! You are always such fun to have around."
The dress is unbuttoned and I slip out of it, making sure Chloe's ring of lock picks still hangs about my neck.
"Oh, Lord, look at you standin' there like that! I'm really gonna miss you, child. You sure can put Mam'selle's heart all aflutter."
"You've seen how I always seem to pop back up like that bad penny, Sister Claudelle. Maybe someday you'll do another Boston tour and we'll meet again. You know you'll always be in my heart and in my fondest thoughts."
I take the money from the purse and pack it into my money belt, which I cinch tightly around my waist. Then I pull on my burglar's rig, which has been laid out across the bed—first the tight black trousers, then the black jersey, then the black skintight gloves.
I go over to the open window, ready to go out.
"Give us a last kiss, Precious, please."
"Will you thank the rest of the girls for their help, and Missus Babineau, too?"
"Yes, dear child, I will."
"Good-bye, Mam'selle," I say, and plant a kiss on her forehead.
"On the lips, Precious, for this is good-bye," she says, and I pucker up and do it. Then I pull on my black hood and climb up onto the windowsill and look out into the alleyway, two stories below. There is a man down there, but he is facing the other way. Time to go.
"Good-bye, Precious," says Mam'selle Claudelle de Bourbon, giving my tail a last squeeze as I jump out the window and grab on to the rope hanging there and start climbing up to the roof.
I go up hand over hand till I gain the edge of the roof, and then, by hooking my foot in the rain gutter, I am able to pull myself onto the top. I crouch and look down all four sides, and sure enough, Lafitte's men are all about. I untie the rope from around the chimney, where I had tied it the night before, and coil it about my arm for use later.
The House of the Rising Sun is a freestanding building, but the houses next to it are connected, sharing two walls each, all the way down Conti Street to Bourbon Street, and it is a mere five-foot gap that I will have to jump.
I back up and then run for all I'm worth and leap out over the edge...
"Hey, there's something up there!" I hear someone shout when I'm in midair. "It's her!"
It's her, indeed, and she hits the neighboring rooftop, and slips, recovers, then commences running over the uneven roofs, down toward the river.
"Where the hell did she go?"
Well, you can't know that, can you, scum? 'Cause I'm up here and you're down there and I could go down anywhere I want, and I choose to go down here, at the back of the last building that faces on Bienville Street, well out of sight of those racing down Conti.
I loop the rope around a convenient chimney and climb down to the street, and when my feet hit the cobblestones, I'm racin' off to the levee.
"Cast off, Jim, and let's get outta here!" I order as I jump down into the waiting Evening Star, and he tightens the sail and puts over the rudder.
We can hear sounds of commotion back on the levee as we pull away, but nothing comes out of it that could do us any harm.
The thing is done.
Chapter 74
"Is she not just the finest thing, Higgins?"
"She is, indeed, Miss."
We are slipping through the long, smooth swells of the Caribbean Sea, off the mouth of Kingston Harbor, on the Nancy B. Alsop. Although I have always felt that a ship, once named, should stick with the name it is given, I just couldn't keep the Amelia Klump as the name for this sleek, elegant ship, and so I have named her after my mother. It is a fine day, with a good stiff breeze filling our sails—we have main- and topsails set, as well as a fore-and-aft sail up forward. A schooner does not have square sails like a frigate or other big ship, but instead its mainsails are gaff rigged with the sails' forward edges attached to hoops that encircle the masts. That makes it very easy to raise, trim, and lower the sails, and it also makes her a very sweet sailer.
Jim Tanner is proudly at the wheel, squinting up at the set of the canvas, while his wife, Clementine, sits beside him on the hatch top, sewing a Faber Shipping, Worldwide flag, complete with white anchor, fouled, on blue background. Both she and Chloe Cantrell suffered a touch of seasickness, but both are better now. Solomon Freeman is on deck, adjusting the sail trim when needed, and young Daniel Prescott is up in the rigging, deliriously happy, whooping with each foaming dive of the Nancys nose into the swells.
Ah, but it is good to feel the salty breeze in my hair once again, what there is of it, anyway. My hair, that is...
"Missy!" cries Daniel from above. "Look there!"
I follow the point of his finger and see that a ship is standing out of the harbor. It is a frigate and from her masthead flies the Union Jack.
Eight days before, when Jim and I had got back to the Belle of the Golden West, dawn was breaking and all on board were roused and preparations begun for departure. The Belle would return to New Orleans with her new owners, Reverend Clawson, the Hawkeses, and Crow Jane; and the soon-to-be-named Nancy B. Alsop would be purchased to carry the rest of us to Kingston, Jamaica.
I plunged down into my cabin to change, followed closely by Higgins.
"I trust all went well?" he asked.
"It went very well, Higgins. Not only did I win the money, but I won most of it from the Brothers Lafitte."
"Their love for you must grow by the day. How did you manage to evade their clutches after the gambling was done? I am quite sure Jean Lafitte was not of a mind to send you merrily on your way with his best wishes."
"They expected me to come out through a door but I went out a window and up a rope I had tied to a chimney. I gained the roof, and from there it was an easy thing to run across the other rooftops and escape."
"Easy for you, Miss," observed Higgins. "And what will you wear today?"
"The blue dress. It would be the coolest, I think."
I peeled off my black burglar's pants and Higgins said, "Ah-ha. So that is how it was done," when he spied the yellow garter that rode above my right knee, which had two aces still tucked into it. I took off the black jersey, too, revealing my shiv's leather sheath similarly adorned with cards.
"That, and the fact that I was able to get into the Rising Sun's gambling room and open the locked cabinet, where I knew they kept the cards, and so was able to mark them—your luck improves when you know where all the high cards are and who's got what."
And did I feel your spirit hands on mine, Mr. Cantrell, guiding them during the actual play? I'd like to think that I did. Thank you, Yancy Beauregard, I learned from the very, very best.
Higgins got me into the dress and we went off and bought the schooner Nancy B. Alsop, while the others packed and made ready to leave. When Higgins and I got back with the paperwork done and ownership transferred, we pulled the Belle up next to the Nancy B. and put our things on board and stowed them in our new cabins.
The tide was incoming when we were done, which would help them get the Belle back up to New Orleans, and so it was time to part.
There was much manly hand-shaking and backslapping among the males, much hugging on the part of the females, and much blubbering, of course, from me.
Good-bye, Matty; good-bye, Nathaniel, oh you, my brave and stalwart oarsmen, farewell! Good-bye, Honeysuckle, Tupelo, didn't we have some times, then? Fare thee well, Reverend, you're one of the best men of God I've ever known. And Janey, my good Crow Jane, how I will miss you! Oh, I just know you're all gonna prosper on the Belle...
Good-bye, Miss ... Good-bye, Skipper ... Good-bye, Missy ... Good-bye, Jacky... Wah-ho-tay, Wah-chinga...
They put their sweeps in the water, wave, and in a very little while, the Belle of the Golden West was gone.
Eight days later, I am on the deck of the Nancy B., with my long glass to my eye, and I leave it there, scanning the deck of the thirty-six-gun British frigate that Daniel had spotted coming out of Kingston Harbor. No, nothing yet ... that has to be the Captain, there on the quarterdeck ... and that must be the Sailing Master, beside him...
We have been lying off Kingston for two days now, watching the British ships that leave the harbor. That thing the ticket agent said last week when he examined the manifest of the Jefferson Hayes for Jaimy's name has stayed with me: He said Lieutenant James Fletcher, not Mr. James Fletcher. So I've got to figure that Jaimy's gonna try to get back in the Royal Navy again if he can.
We've checked each ship, warship or merchant, that has come out since we've been here, scanning them with the telescope and even coming up alongside and asking them if he's aboard or if they've seen him, but nothing yet.... Well, almost nothing yet—one young midshipman on HMS Courage, which went out yesterday, thought maybe he'd met someone of that name and description at the officers' club on the base, but he couldn't be sure. Of course, I can't bring the Nancy B. into the harbor itself, for I'd be nabbed for sure, as it is a British port, after all. I was thinking of sending Jim Tanner in on the lifeboat to scout around, but then this ship comes out. We'll see...
I see the back of another blue-uniformed officer approach the Captain and salute, and I think he says something, then turns ... and yes! It's Jaimy! Oh my God! Oh, thank you, Lord!
"Jim! Bring her alongside that ship, port side!"
"Aye, Missy. All on deck ... ready to come about... Hard a'lee!"
And he puts the rudder over and we swing around. The sails loosen and then flap wildly—in irons, it's called—and then firm up again when the Nancy B. comes back up on the other tack and slips in next to the warship. Oh, what a sweet, sweet sailer you are, Nancy!
The wind, for once, is perfect—right behind both schooner and frigate, so neither of us can go afoul or be caught on a lee shore.
"What is it you want?" calls a man over the side of the ship, which I now know is called the HMS Mercury, from the painted name on her stern.
"I want to speak with Lieutenant James Fletcher! I know he is aboard, and it is very important that I talk to him!"