Isle of Swords (22 page)

“Commodore,” St. Pierre said calmly. “I would not fire that pistol in here, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

St. Pierre pointed at the commodore's feet. He and the other British soldiers looked down and saw the black powder. The color drained from their faces. “I apologize for the mess,” Jacques explained. “You see the barrels stacked head high on either side of you? I am afraid they are leaking their black powder, and I have not had time to sweep.”

Commodore Blake's mouth hung open as he looked at his pistol and understood St. Pierre's implication. “A stray spark,” Jacques continued, “from the flintlock of that pistol might just fall into the powder, mon ami. And that would be the end of us all.”

Blake and most of his men immediately holstered their guns.

Blake unsheathed his saber and said, “Be it by gun or by blade, it matters not. You are all under arrest. If you choose not to cooperate, you will all die here.” Commodore Blake came forward.

“I would not take another step, Commodore,” said St. Pierre.

He waved the torch back and forth and feigned tossing it toward the British soldiers. “If you do, I will throw this torch into the powder at your feet.”

“You'll all be killed as well,” said Commodore Blake with a nervous laugh. “You're bluffing.”

“Am I?” St. Pierre reached into his surcoat pocket and took out a small round object.

“Not another grenade,” Blake muttered.

“Yes,” said Jacques. “And so that you know I am not bluffing . . .”

St. Pierre held the torch to the grenade's fuse, and the long fuse was lit. The flickering, sparking fire began to hungrily crawl up the winding fuse.

“You're mad!” Blake cried. “You'll kill yourself !”

“Jacques!?” Ross whispered urgently behind him.

St. Pierre ignored Ross and explained, “You see, Commodore, I took a vow a long time ago never to be captured alive. And these men behind me would rather go out on their own terms than endure a trial and a hanging.”

“Jacques!” Ross whispered. St. Pierre ignored him again. The fuse continued to burn. It was a quarter of the way gone.

“Come now, Saint Pierre,” said Blake nervously. His men shifted uneasily behind him. “You are a bargaining man, right? Perhaps I could arrange for all of the charges against you to be dropped. Just hand over Declan Ross and his crew. And for heaven's sake, put out that fuse!”

“Ah, mon ami,” St. Pierre said with a sigh. “It is a temptation, for I almost feel like I could trust you, but no, I have thrown in my lot with Declan Ross. And even if I wanted to put out this fuse, I could not easily do so. It—like the grenade—is special. It is waxed hemp strands filled with powder and then wrapped like a snake around an iron cord. You cannot cut this fuse, pull it out, or put it out—not unless you could drop it into a barrel of water. And alas!” He kicked over the barrel nearest the forge. “My water barrel is now empty.”

“You fool!” Blake yelled. He looked at Ross. “Captain Ross, do something!”

Ross, who thought he understood what St. Pierre was doing, said, “What can I do? Like he said, better to die quick than jerking around on the end of a rope.”

“You're all mad!”

“At last you understand,” said St. Pierre. “Now, Commodore, unless you wish to join our little au revoir, I suggest you and your men depart. And you no doubt noticed the barrels around my mill?

They too are filled to bursting with black powder.” Jacques looked at the fuse. It was nearing halfway gone. “You have about thirty seconds to get as far away as you can before everything within fifty yards gets blown to pieces!”

Commodore Blake's face contorted into a kind of snarl, but he knew when he was beaten. He ordered his men to retreat, and they fell back quickly, tearing out the door they had broken down and fleeing en masse at top speed.

A few moments later, with just a quarter of the fuse left, Ross grabbed St. Pierre by the shoulder and said, “Jacques, that was great!” Red Eye and the others gathered around the Frenchman.

“You sure scared Blake!” Ross continued. “Ha! Remind me never to play cards with you! That was the best bluff I've ever seen!”

St. Pierre's expression turned solemn. “I wasn't bluffing.”

Ross's grin vanished. “What?” He laughed nervously. “Very funny. That fake grenade really had them going. It even had me going!”

“It's not fake,” said Jacques. The fuse continued to burn.

“What do you mean—Jacques, put it out!!”

“I am afraid I cannot.” Jacques St. Pierre looked grimly from eye to eye and said, “I redirected the water troughs from the mountain.

The English might have tried to flood the mill and ruin my plans.

You see, they are outside—at a distance, yes, but they are waiting.

As I told the good commodore, I will not be captured. Now, gentlemen, it is time to say our good-byes.”

The British schooners closed rapidly, but, other than their speed, they made no aggressive movements.

“Why don't they fire?” Padre Dominguez asked.

“Maybe they want to get closer,” Stede whispered aloud.

“Maybe they—” A flash of orange lit up the ship. Stede leaped to his feet and looked up into the sky over Dominica. The sound that followed was so loud and sudden that Stede and the crewmen of the
Wallace
dove for the deck or ducked. But this was no cannon fire.

When they finally managed to stand, they could see that beyond the foothills, in the direction of Misson, a huge roiling plume of dark smoke and angry red flames was rising into the sky. Stede took advantage of the distraction and sailed the
Wallace
around a bend.

Stede looked back over his shoulder at the rising fireball. “Oh, Declan . . . what have you done?” Just then, Anne stumbled up onto the deck. She stood next to Stede in silence, staring into the sky. Tears welled and spilled down her face. She fell to her knees and wept.

Commodore Blake and his soldiers were a hundred yards away from St. Pierre's mill when the entire structure—the two-story house, the stone base and arch, the waterwheel and framing—was vaporized by an explosion unlike anything they had ever experienced.

Blake coughed and pushed himself up from the dirt. He stood awkwardly. His mouth was agape, and he stared at the inferno, which, a moment ago, had been St. Pierre's mill. The commodore blinked, shook his head, and thought about Declan Ross. He remembered the loyalty this pirate had shown to his crew, risking his life twice just to bring one man back. Blake remembered their duel and the result. “He spared my life,” Blake muttered. He looked up at the fireball climbing into the morning sky. “You fool.” When Blake said it, he wasn't sure whom he'd meant: Declan Ross for choosing certain death over capture, or himself for driving a decent man into a corner from which the only escape was the grave.

24
GRAVEROBBERS

C
louds gathered over Dominica, casting a pall on the stained-glass window of the church in Misson. Brother Jerome, one of the monks who helped Father Espinosa care for Misson's faithful, wiped the sweat from his brow and continued sweeping the stone walk that divided the graveyard behind the church. Father Espinosa, of course, had gone to help fight the fires that sprang up all around what remained of St. Pierre's mill. And that left Brother Jerome alone in the graveyard. Not that he was afraid to be there alone. After all, Jerome was in the prime of manhood, strong and confident. And it was, in spite of the new cloud cover . . . daytime.

Brother Jerome stopped sweeping a moment and adjusted the collar of his brown robe. The stone walk before him stretched over a hill and followed the graveyard down into a semi-wooded hollow. Brother Jerome swallowed. Wisps of smoke had drifted down into the low-lying areas and now curled slowly around the skeletal trees, the ever-staring statues, and the looming monuments. “Ah! Ridiculous pagan superstition!” he scoffed aloud, finding the sound of his own voice a little bit comforting. “It is nothing. Smoke from a dozen little fires being put out.”

He continued sweeping, whistling a favorite hymn, as he worked his way over the hill and down into the hollow. It seemed to grow quieter as he descended. The gloom deepened as well as he worked his way down the stone walk that wound under the canopies of trees and ended near the shadow of the higher hills. Brother Jerome looked back up the hill to the church, which suddenly seemed a hundred miles away. Feeling as if someone were watching him, he spun around. But the only thing there was a stone angel. She guarded a gravesite with outstretched wings. Her large blank eyes made Jerome shiver.
Calm yourself! You've been down here a thousand times,
he told himself.

Then he heard a short scraping sound—like stone grating against stone. Brother Jerome wheeled around, holding up his broom like a weapon. He looked at a large stone sarcophagus just ten feet away. The name engraved there identified the deceased as Jourdan Sebastian Prewitt. Born 1659. Died 1703.
The rectory fire. Poor soul
, thought Jerome. The inscription along the side of the stone coffin was in Latin. Thanks to the expert teaching of Father Espinosa, Jerome could read Latin very well. Just this once, he wished he hadn't been such a good student. The inscription read:
Venio cum gladio de mortuis
.

I come with sword from death.
Jerome started to shake. He heard the scraping sound again. This time longer. And he noticed the slab lid of the sarcophagus had shifted. Then he heard an otherworldly voice, spoken from far away and yet, still near.

“. . . waited long enough,” said the voice, heavily accented in French.
Jourdan Sebastian Prewitt
, thought Brother Jerome.
That is a Frenchman's name!

The stone lid began to move. He could now see a dark gap where the slab had moved away. Tendrils of dust drifted out and curled like fingers around the sarcophagus. “Time to escape this foul tomb,” said the voice. “Time to rise . . .”

The stone lid seemed to move on its own accord. It slid across the tomb and fell with a crash at its side. Rivers of gray dust flowed over the edges of the now open grave. Brother Jerome dropped his broom. He felt frozen in place. His heartbeat thundered. Slowly, a pale figure shrouded in the swirling dust began to rise up. He wore a wide-brimmed hat from which wild, curly dark hair fell like a veil and an old frock coat. In his hand was a menacing silver sword. As he rose, he turned and saw the terrified monk. Brother Jerome, at last overcome by the appearance of this apparition, fell unconscious to the ground right next to his broom.