Evil in a Mask (43 page)

Smiling, she replied, ‘I am much relieved. I am glad, too, not to find you still under the influence of the drug. Had I done so, I should have been terrified that I had given you too much. I took it from Papa's medicine chest, and had to guess at the dose. It now remains for us only to secure my papa's acceptance of your having smuggled yourself aboard to accompany me.'

‘Smuggled myself?' Roger repeated with a frown.

‘Why, yes. I'd not dare confess to having locked you in my cabin. We must say that, out of love for me and without my knowledge, you hid yourself and sailed as a stowaway.'

‘And where, if you please, am I supposed to have spent the night?'

‘Where I did, most uncomfortably, concealed between some bales of stores on the lower deck.' As Lisala spoke, she put a hand to her disordered hair and added, ‘Just look at the state I am in. And I feel quite dreadful. Please go on deck now and show yourself, so that meanwhile I can unpack some of my things and tidy myself.'

Seeing no alternative to doing as she asked, Roger embraced and kissed her, then made his way up on deck. There were already some forty or fifty people, mostly men, standing gloomily about there. The coast of Portugal was no longer visible but, near and far, could be seen other ships ploughing through the waves on the same course as the
Nunez
. Within a few hundred yards there was a frigate flying the White Ensign. Roger looked longingly at her but, as he had feared, the sea was much too choppy for there to be any prospect of a boat taking him across to her. He had always been a bad sailor and was already beginning to feel queasy. But, for once, he resigned himself to
that unhappy state on the grounds that it would enable him to cut short his difficult interview with de Pombal.

Scanning the faces round about, he soon saw the Marquis standing with a group of other gentlemen just below the poop. As he advanced towards them, de Pombal caught sight of him and exclaimed in surprise, ‘Mr. Brook! How do you come to be aboard the
Nunez
?'

With a bow, Roger said, ‘May I have a word with Your Lordship in private?'

Inclining his head, the Marquis left his companions and walked over to a place on the windward side of the ship, where there were fewer people. When he halted, Roger bowed again and resumed:

‘My lord, I have a confession to make. I am passionately enamoured of Lisala and could not support the thought that I would never see her again. This led to my forming a resolve to emigrate to Brazil. Having taken my decision hastily, I had no opportunity of securing for myself suitable accommodation for the voyage; so, yesterday afternoon I came aboard
Nunez
and stowed away. I need hardly assure you that my intentions are honourable. I am by no means without fortune, and own a pleasant property in England. I request your permission to pay my suit to your daughter.'

Greatly taken aback, de Pombal stared at Roger. After a moment he said, ‘Mr. Brook, I hardly know what to say. By leaving Europe in this fashion you have clearly demonstrated your devotion to my daughter. But my choice of a husband for her is a matter requiring grave consideration. During the voyage I can do no more than allow you to make her the subject of your attentions.'

For the time being, that was all Roger required and to have gone into the matter further might have led to complications. Putting his hand quickly to his mouth, he bowed and said, ‘I thank you, Sir. Now … now, if you will forgive me, I must leave you, as I am feeling far from well.' Then he turned and hurried away to the fo'c'sle where he knew the ‘heads' lay.

During the course of the day he had good cause to resent more than ever having been forced to undertake this long
voyage. He learned that over fifteen thousand people: nobles and officials with their families and servants, were accompanying the Prince Regent into exile. Every warship and merchantman in the great fleet was crowded beyond her normal capacity. Only persons of high rank enjoyed the privilege of sleeping in narrow cabins; the rest dossed down where they could on the deck or below it, in odd corners with their cloaks wrapped round them and only the valises they had brought with them for pillows.

He learned that, on the previous evening, the fleet had got away only by the skin of its teeth. Junot and his weary, bedraggled vanguard had entered Lisbon while many of the ships had still been at anchor. The French had even prevented a few ships from leaving by sending off boats packed with troops who had shot down the sailors in the rigging, then boarded the ships and captured them.

But Don Joao, in the flagship
Principe Real
and his principal Ministers, Antonio de Aranjo and the Viscount de Anadia, had got away. Other Counsellors, the Marquis de Belas, Don Rodrigo da Sousa, the Duke of Cadaval and Dr. José Carreira Pieanco, were in
Medusa
and, like de Pombal, temporarily separated from their master.

In
Nunez
, no orderly routine had yet been established. When food was produced in the main cabin at the usual dinner hour, protocol soon went by the board. Normally, the Grandees and their ladies would have been given ample time to take their pick of the most enjoyable edibles, but after a few minutes, there ensued a wild scramble and everyone piled on to his own plate spoonsful from the dishes nearest to hand.

Faced with the problem of where to sleep in the overcrowded ship, Roger went to the Captain and bartered some of his gold for permission to doss down in the flag locker. It was no more than a cubby-hole adjacent to the deck house on the poop; but at least it would not be as stifling as the crowded cabins below decks, and the flags provided a not uncomfortable couch on which to lie.

Next morning he presented himself to Lisala and her aunt. They showed no surprise, as the Marquis had already told
them of Roger's presence aboard. De Pombal, who was with them, made no reference then or later to Roger's having asked Lisala's hand in marriage. Apparently, in conformity with his long career as a diplomat, he had decided to leave the matter open and await developments.

After a few days, life aboard the
Nunez
began to form a pattern. De Pombal and six other noblemen had formed a committee, the decisions of which were accepted as orders by the other passengers. A roster was drawn up, dividing them into three classes: the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, and the servants. To prevent the unseemly jostling at meal times, three services took place at hourly intervals. The poop was reserved for the nobility, the waist of the ship for the ordinary citizens and the fo'c'sle for the menials. The stock of food was listed and strictly rationed. To minimise the appalling congestion, those who had no cabins were divided into watches which alternately spent eight hours below and eight hours on deck. Masses were said at eight o'clock in the morning and four o'clock in the afternoon, so that both watches could perform their devotions daily. Hours were set for games and competitions, the educated were formed into reading circles and held Spelling Bees; those having vocal or musical talent helped to while away the long evenings as a choral society or by giving concerts. The gentry also amused themselves with charades and playing cards.

Thus, as the flotilla ran down the coast of Africa in better weather, boredom and distress at having been uprooted from their homes was, to some extent, alleviated. But little could be done to lessen the discomfort of their quarters, the monotonous, inferior food and the claustrophobia resulting from spending all one's waking hours with hardly space to move about among the swarm of people constantly occupying the crowded decks.

Roger consoled himself as well as he could with the companionship of Lisala. As they sat side by side during the mornings and sometimes in the afternoons, he taught her to speak English. The frequent lessons enabled her to pick it up quite quickly, and soon they were able to talk together of matters
that it would not have been desirable for their neighbours on the deck to hear and understand.

But for them to make love in such conditions was impossible. By night and day every corner of the ship either had someone squatting in it or it was liable to be invaded at any moment. To visit her in her cabin was equally out of the question, as at all hours people were passing up and down the passage outside, so the risk of his being seen going in or out was too great to be taken.

The fact that they were constantly together added to their frustration and, in Roger's case, it strengthened his secret determination to abandon Lisala rather than go to Brazil, if he could possibly manage to escape from the
Nunez
.

His hopes of this were pinned on the fact that all convoys bound for South America always put in at Madeira. There, stores would be replenished; fresh fruit, vegetables and livestock would be taken on board. During that activity it seemed certain that an opportunity would occur for him to go ashore and, if British warships were still escorting the convoy, secure a passage home in one of them; or, at the worst, remain there until a ship called that would take him back to Europe.

On the evening they sighted the island he felt very heavy-hearted and talked with special tenderness to Lisala; for he was terribly distressed at the thought of parting from her. But long experience had taught him that, sooner or later, all passionate attachments, except that between him and Georgina, declined at best into no more than an affectionate relationship; and that, after a year or two he would meet with some other woman whose beauty and personality would set his brain on fire.

But his secret plans were set at naught by the elements. During the night a storm blew up. He woke in the early hours, to find the
Nunez
rolling and pitching in a heavy sea. Prone to seasickness as he was, a quarter of an hour later he was vomiting into a bucket.

When dawn came, feeling incredibly ill he staggered out on to the deck. Rain was descending in torrents, reducing visibility to less than a hundred yards. Every stitch of canvas had
been taken in and, with bare masts, the
Nunez
was being driven through great, spume-flecked waves by the fury of the storm.

Roger lurched back to his cubby-hole and collapsed on the pile of flags. He was sick again and again, until there was nothing remaining inside him. Yet, with soul-searing pain, his wretched stomach automatically continued in its attempts to throw up.

Later, he was vaguely conscious that Lisala, who had proved a much better sailor than he was, had his head in her lap and was doing her best for him. But her ministrations did little to relieve his agony. For hours on end the ship continued to soar up mountainous waves, then descend like a plummet into the troughs between them. At the same time she laboured on with a ghastly corkscrew motion, causing her to shudder with every twist, and her timbers to groan from the strain put upon them. At times she rolled so heavily that it seemed certain that she must turn turtle and go down. As, unresisting, Roger rolled with her from side to side on his couch of flags, he prayed that she would. Death seemed to him preferable to continuing longer the torments he was suffering.

From time to time he lapsed into unconsciousness, only when he came to again to enter on a new bout of agonising retching that reduced him to mental and physical exhaustion.

For three days the hurricane continued. At last the ferocious waves subsided into a heavy swell. Still dazed, he crawled out of the flag locker on hands and knees and looked about him. The
Nunez
was still running with bare masts before the tail end of the storm and he saw that her foremast was missing. It had been snapped off six feet above the deck.

Round about, other passengers were lying on the deck, sprawled grotesquely in a sleep that might have been death, or squatting against the bulwarks, staring in front of them with vacant, lack-lustre eyes.

Gradually some of them pulled themselves together, levered themselves up on to the still heaving deck, and compared experiences. Roger learned that everyone aboard, with only a few exceptions among the crew, had succumbed to seasickness. A few ships in the flotilla might have succeeded in reaching
Madeira and sheltering in the bay of Funchal; but the majority had become scattered and were now out in the wastes of the Atlantic.

That afternoon, under still leaden skies, those passengers who were sufficiently recovered assembled to partake of cold food. Yet, when it came to the point, the majority of them could not face it. To the discomfort of overcrowding, which made the ship a human ant-heap, was now added the horror that it stank to high heaven with vomit and excrement.

The Portuguese officers and crew, aided by a number of the more stalwart passengers, did what they could to cleanse the decks of the sewage which had accumulated from prostrate victims of the tempest; but it was the best part of a week before the awful stench no longer caused the weaker elements of the ship's company to be again overcome by nausea.

For several days after the great storm, a heavy swell continued to make life on board far from comfortable; but at length it subsided and the daily routine established before they had sighted Madeira was resumed. Meanwhile, several other ships, including a Portuguese man-of-war, had been sighted and converged to form a small convoy. Signals were exchanged, but no news was forthcoming from any of them about the
Principe Real
, on board which were Don Joao and his family.

Every day carried them a little further southward and, to begin with, they enjoyed the warmer sunshine; but later the heat added to their miseries. Below decks, it became stifling; so the poop, the waist of the ship and the fo'c'sle were packed with a solid jam of men and women sitting or standing, all listlessly endeavouring to get a breath of air. Tempers frayed. There were angry disputes, violent quarrels over the possession of a few square feet of deck and, at times, there were fights in which knives and belaying pins were used.

Week after week the hellish voyage continued, periods of rough weather alternating with spells of calm, when the sails hung slack and the unhappy passengers suffered acutely from sunburn. Dysentery was rife, food short and water strictly rationed. Hardly a day passed without one or more deaths from various causes. During the hurricane many people had
been injured and were still nursing broken bones. Others went mad from sunstroke and several, driven out of their wits by their terrible existence, committed suicide by jumping overboard. Few any longer bothered to maintain a presentable appearance. All the men let their beards grow; the hair of the women became lank or scruffy, their clothes were bedraggled and their faces peeling.