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  “Are you hurt?” he shouted, and until then she hadn’t been aware of the tremendous noise about them.

  “What’s wrong? Are we sinking?” She snuggled against him, so very glad to touch him once again.

  “It’s only a storm,” he shouted down at her. “There shouldn’t be much danger since we’ve been preparing for it for days. I want you to stay here, do you understand? I don’t want you to take it into your head to go on deck or to the other passengers. Do I make myself clear?”

  She nodded against his shoulder, clinging to him, thinking that perhaps the reason for his absence for the last few days was his preparation for the storm.

  Bending, he lowered her to the bed, gave her a look she couldn’t fathom, and then kissed her, possessively and forcibly. “Stay here,” he repeated, touching the corner of one of her swollen, red eyes.

  With that he was gone, and Regan was left alone in the dark cabin. She was much more aware of the rolling of the ship after Travis left. To keep from being thrown from the bunk, she grabbed the sides as best she could. Water seeped in under the door, coating the cabin floor.

  Even as she struggled to keep her balance, she began to imagine what was happening on deck. If the water was coming into her cabin, it must be washing over the sides of the ship. Her imagination, always active, began to conjure a picture of horror. Once, when Regan was hardly more than a child, a scullery maid of her uncle’s had received a letter saying that her young husband had been washed overboard during a storm, and later a friend of his had come to tell her the full, gruesome story. Every member of the staff, as well as Regan, had gathered around the sailor and heard every gory detail.

  Now the story did not seem like a story because above her head were actual waves as tall as a house, waves of such force that they could take a dozen men with them when they returned to sea.

  And Travis was up there!

  The thought rang through her head. Of course, Travis would never believe he could come to harm. No doubt he was sure even the sea would obey his commands. And it wasn’t as if he were a real sailor either. He was just a farmer who’d been on a whaler as a boy, and now he had to work to pay his passage.

  An especially violent toss of the ship sent Regan flying out of the bunk again. Travis! she thought, struggling to stand. Perhaps that was the wave that tore him from the decks.

  A massive sound of cracking wood above her head sent her eyes upward. The ship was breaking apart! With both hands on the bunk edge, she managed to stand, and she started the long passage toward her trunk, which was fortunately bolted to the floor. First she had to find a cloak, and then she had to somehow make her way on deck. Someone had to save Travis from himself, had to persuade him to return to the comparative safety of the cabin, and if he wouldn’t, someone had to watch out for him. If he were washed overboard, she planned to throw him a rope.

  Chapter 9

  NO STORY EVER TOLD COULD HAVE PREPARED REGAN FOR the blast of wind and sharp salt air that tore into her body as she opened the door under the quarterdeck. It took all her strength to push the door open wide enough to allow her onto the deck, and it slammed hard behind her. A wave of salt spray soaked her immediately, making her wool cape cling heavily to her slight frame.

  Bracing herself against the stair railing, using her strength to keep upright, she blinked against the cold, piercing water that seemed to want to drill holes into her and tried to see if she could find Travis. At first she couldn’t distinguish men from the parts of the ship, but her interest in the safety of Travis was stronger than the pain caused by the violence around her.

  Gradually, her eyes adjusted, and, blinking rapidly to clear the water away, she made out the shadowy figures of men in the midst of the long, wide deck. Before she could make a decision about how to get to that part of the ship, a sudden lurch sent her sprawling, and, like a piece of driftwood, she was knocked down and rolled across the deck. As her body slammed into the side of the ship, she grabbed what was nearest to her—the wooden support of an iron cannon.

  When the wave was past, she began to pull herself upright again, and as she did she heard the cracking sound again; only this time she could tell that it was coming from overhead. One of the masts must be breaking. Starting slowly, taking each step by inches, she began to move toward the men and the breaking mast.

  Every crewman and, she was happy to see, Travis also, was holding on to a part of the ship and looking up at the splintering wood.

  “Get up there, I say!” the captain bellowed, his voice even louder than the fury of the sea.

  Wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, Regan could see the sailors take a step backward, and it took her a moment to realize that the captain was ordering someone to climb the rigging. She had half a mind to tell him what she thought of his request, but of course she must keep quiet and not let Travis know she was there.

  But one quick look at Travis, and she saw that he’d already seen her and was making his way toward her. The look of rage on his face put the sea to shame, and without thinking Regan started back toward the door under the quarterdeck; her courage had quite suddenly vanished.

  Travis’s big hand caught her shoulder before she’d gone two steps. He didn’t say a word, and since everything was written on his face, he didn’t need to.

  As the ship lurched and another wave threatened to capsize them, Travis flung his body over hers, pinning her against the railing, holding her securely with his superior strength.

  “I may beat you for this,” he shouted into her ear when at last the ship righted itself.

  But their attention was caught by another, louder, shout from the captain. “Isn’t there a man among you?”

  It was at that moment, with Travis holding her arm in a painful grip, that Regan saw David and knew immediately that he’d followed her onto the deck. Even in the dim light, through the pounding spray, she could see the bruises on his face where Travis had hit him. Her eyes locked and held with his for a moment, and a wave of guilt passed through her because she saw that he knew she’d used him, that he knew he’d made a fool of himself.

  A smaller wave washed across them and broke their eye contact, and when it receded she saw that David had moved forward—but he wasn’t looking at her. Walking as straight as he could under the circumstances, he went toward the captain.

  Stopping just opposite Travis, he shouted, “I’m a man. I’ll climb the rigging.”

  “No!” Regan screamed, clutching at Travis’s arm. “Stop him!”

  David held onto the fife rail at the base of the mast and turned his head to Travis. Travis, seeming to understand David’s silent plea, nodded once before clasping Regan’s hands in his and stilling her.

  Regan struggled against Travis, wanting to go to David, to stop him, knowing that what he wanted to do, this attempt at what amounted to suicide, was her fault.

  When she saw that there was nothing she could do, she became very still, like the crew. Travis braced himself between the rail and a cannon carriage, holding Regan tightly, but his eyes never wavered from David’s slight form.

  The captain, glad to finally find someone brave enough to climb the rigging, was shouting instructions to David while wrapping rope about his waist. From gestures and the few words that could be heard, it was clear that David was to climb the swinging rope rigging to the first and longest yardarm, crawl along its narrow width about halfway until he was suspended over the turbulent water, and bind the splitting yardarm.

  Regan could only gasp in disbelief, too astonished even to make a further protest. She knew for sure that she was watching a man go to his death. With fear, she buried her face against Travis, but he pulled her head around and made her look at David, who was poised at the base of the mast, waiting only for Regan to give him a parting glance.

  Lifting her hand toward him before dropping it helplessly at her side, she stood straight, her back against Travis’s chest, and watched as he grimly started the climb.

  His inept
itude was immediately apparent as his feet slipped, quite often losing their grip so that he held on by only one hand. The wind tore at him, pulling his hands away, knocking the rope from under his feet.

  Regan put her hand to her mouth and sank her teeth into her own flesh as she watched.

  Slowly, with great difficulty at every step, David finally reached the yardarm. Hanging on to it with both his arms, seeming to pause for a moment’s rest or perhaps waiting until the next great wave passed, he hesitated. When the water cleared, and the people on deck saw that he was still there. they gave a united gasp of relief.

  As the ship righted itself again, David inched forward on the yardarm. A foot before he reached the break, he unwound some of the rope about his waist and put one end into his mouth.

  “Look out!” came a shout from near Regan.

  But David could not hear the warning as another big wave separated him from the people below.

  On deck, the crashing of the wave was mixed with another sound—that of splintering wood. Holding her breath, seeming to wait an eternity before the water cleared, Regan stared fearfully up at the yardarm where David hung so tenaciously. When she could see at last, she smiled because the yardarm was still intact.

  But her smile quickly receded when she saw what had broken. Above David’s head was the maintop, a large platform where the men kept vigil. This platform had broken away on one side, part of it just over David’s head, and from the way he lay without moving, it seemed to have hit him.

  Regan clutched Travis to her, her hands holding tightly as she watched David’s small, motionless figure high over her head.

  She had no idea that Travis was watching her, studying the fear on her face. She was aware of nothing until Travis pushed her away from him, wedged her body onto the deck, and clasped her hands about the heavy, anchored cannon. “Stay!” he commanded, before grabbing rope tied to the fife rail and wrapping it about his waist.

  Terror of a new kind surged through Regan, a terror so great that no words would come out of her mouth, and her arms clutching the cold cannon were white with strain.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, she watched Travis ascend the rigging, his feet and hands much more sure than David’s, agile in spite of the size of him, or perhaps his strength was needed to hold him against the raging storm.

  Each time a wave came over her and cut Travis from her view, Regan felt that she died a little bit. By the time he reached the yardarm, her body was as rigid as the iron of the cannon she gripped.

  Cautiously, Travis crawled along the yardarm, straddling David when he reached him, leaning over, obviously shouting to the young man, but the fierce wind took the words away.

  When David lifted himself and looked up at Travis, several of the sailors shouted encouragement. But Regan felt no relief whatsoever.

  Travis and David seemed to talk for quite some time before Travis began moving forward, giving everyone more to fear as he passed David on the narrow projectile. Deftly and quickly, Travis lashed the splintering yardarm together, wrapping it tightly with the rope he carried. Twice he had to stop and cling to the pole as a wave threatened to pull him into the sea.

  When he finished, he backed toward David, David handed him the rope from his waist, and Travis tied one end about his own waist. Now they were joined together for whatever fate awaited them in the long descent to the deck.

  More talking was done as Travis seemed to be trying to persuade David to move from the piece of wood he held in a strangling grip.

  Regan’s heart almost stopped beating as she saw Travis pull on the rope, encouraging David to back toward the main mast. It was as if Travis had all the time in the world as he patiently waited for David to begin to move.

  Slowly, each muscle at a time, David started backing up, and Travis guided the young man’s feet onto the rope rigging. As if he were a child, Travis helped David, placed his hands and feet in the proper places, and once flung his arms across David, holding them both to the unsteady and flimsy rigging. When the wave passed, they started down again.

  Regan began to breathe a bit when they were about twenty feet above the deck. She saw Travis shout at David, saw the young man shake his head, and heard Travis shout again until David nodded his head in agreement. David began to descend alone, Travis holding the rope about his waist, tying one end to the rigging.

  Rising from her squatting position, Regan saw that Travis was making sure David was safe, that he was securely fastened so that if the next wave carried Travis over, he would go alone.

  Guessing that as Travis glanced out to sea he saw something that the people below couldn’t see, she watched, tears coursing down her face. Travis wrapped the rope around his powerful forearm; then, entangling his other arm in the rigging, he kicked out at David, whose head was now even with Travis’s feet. David, unsteady and terrified, immediately lost his grip on the rigging, and his slight body swung away, falling for a few precious seconds before the slack was taken up in the hold Travis had on the rope about David’s waist.

  A high scream of terror escaped David before Travis began to lower him, and the sailors caught him, quickly pulling him to the deck.

  But Regan’s eyes never left Travis, who, as soon as he saw David was safe, dropped the rope and grabbed the rigging, ducking his head as if in protection. She left the cannon with one swift step, and that was as far as she got before the biggest wave of all hit them. The deck was flooded with cold, salty water, and in protest the ship threatened to turn over.

  Regan slammed into the deck, rolled across it, and hit the fife railing with a bone-jarring jolt. Yet, in spite of her pain, all she was aware of was that above her she heard another horrible sound of wood cracking.

  In spite of the angle of the deck and the rushing water, she grabbed the railing and tried to pull herself upward. A man’s scream and a fleeting glimpse of a body sailing over her head and going past the deck rail did not deter her from her course. It was difficult to breathe, much less see, as she struggled to look up at the rigging where Travis hung.

  Had she not been looking so hard, she would not have seen the blurry image of Travis as his hands lost their grip and he began to fall. His foot was caught in the rigging, and this saved him as he appeared to struggle for his senses and find the rope he needed to hold him fast.

  The aftershocks of the big wave tossed the big ship like a child’s top as Regan clung and prayed and watched Travis struggling to hang on. She could see that something was wrong with him, that he was fighting more than the sea.

  With one arm hooked about the rail, she wrenched a piece of rope as big around as her arm from the pins and then inched toward the bottom of the rigging.

  All around her, men were shouting, and the wind and water played tricks with sounds, but Regan only saw Travis as he painfully lowered himself. Still holding on as best she could, she climbed up the rigging until she was able to touch Travis’s foot.

  Scared but knowing there was no other way, she wrapped the rope around his ankle and the rigging. The rope was too long and too big for her to knot properly, so all she did was wrap it, hoping she’d have time before the next wave came.

  She was unprepared for the slash of a wave while hanging above the deck on just a bit of rope. She tangled her body in the rope and hung on for dear life.

  After this wave, she was too frightened to move, and with her hand clasping the end of the big rope attached to Travis’s ankle, she was afraid to open her eyes. She’d done all she could to save him, and now she couldn’t bear to look to see if he was there or not.

  It seemed to her a long time that she hung there, half-sitting, half-suspended, before she heard shouts below. Still afraid to open her eyes, she kept them wrenched shut.

  “Travis!” came the clear call from below her, actually seeming quite near.

  “Mrs. Stanford,” called a voice that could only be the captain’s.

  With trepidation, she opened her eyes, still afraid to look to her left where Travis m
ight or might not be.

  Later, no one could remember who was the first to start laughing. Perhaps it wasn’t a laughing matter, but the sailors were so relieved to have finally left the storm behind them, the last two waves having knocked the ship out of its path, that the sight above them was hugely entertaining.

  Regan, ten feet above deck, was practically sitting in the rigging, clad only in a very wet muslin dress, her bare legs through the knotted rope squares wrapped tightly, hugging her own body, as were her arms. In one hand was an enormous rope attached to the leg of Travis, a man twice her size, who now lounged in the rigging as if he were sleeping. For all the world she looked like a little girl leading some sort of strange animal.

  “Stop your yammering and get them down!” the captain bellowed.

  Encouraged by their laughter, Regan dared to look toward Travis, and at this close range she could see the blood seeping at the side of his head.

  When three of the sailors had climbed to her and saw Travis’s condition, they no longer laughed.

  “You saved his life,” one of them said, awe in his voice. “He’s not even aware we’re here. He couldn’t have hung on without you tyin’ him.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “He’s breathin’,” the sailor said, but would say no more.

  “No,” she said when he touched her. “Get Travis down first.”

  Now that the seriousness of what Regan had done reached them, the sailors glanced up at her in amazement for a moment before turning away and respectfully not looking openly at her fine, bare legs.

  With some dignity, Regan was able to descend the rigging with the help of a sailor. She was startled at how high up she’d gone and at the difficulty she had in getting down.

  Finally on a solid surface again, she followed the men carrying Travis to their cabin. As they passed David’s cabin, one of the men murmured that the young gentleman was sleeping. Regan only nodded as her thoughts were completely with Travis.