The Huntress ✓

28. Capture

The sound of seabirds squabbling woke Bronte. The room was already getting stuffy. She stood and stretched her stiff, aching muscles. Her chest was tight, and she muffled a cough; probably from all the seawater she'd dined on. She grabbed her only remaining pair of boots, the too tight ones from the Frenchman, and shoved her feet into them.

Dr. Carter was absent, and only Lucien occupied the bed now, breathing shallowly, his face just as gray as last night. At least he's being still, she thought wryly as she searched her desk for the Bible she'd been studying.

It was missing from her desktop. Perhaps the doctor was looking at it. She left to look for him. She exited her cabin and after pausing a moment for her eyes to adjust to the bright sunshine, she scanned the ship. Seeing no one, she climbed to the foredeck for a better view. When she reached the top, she paused as a fit of coughing wracked her lungs.

When it subsided, she drew in a breath. A playful breeze teased her hair, and the air smelled fresh and clean. You'd never guess there was a storm last night. Bronte looked up, surprised to find Sam, lounging on the deck in one of his strange reclining chairs, the Bible open before him. He was busily working on a crutch as he read, looking fairly healthy and whole, a pile of wood ribbons lying in curls around him.

Bronte ambled up behind him and peered over his head to see where he was reading. Sam cocked his head back and looked up at her.

"How'd you get up here?" she asked.

"'Bout time you woke. Wasn't easy, but you sure weren't budging from that chair to help me. You'd think you were the one who nearly drowned," Sam said teasingly.

"I did nearly drown. As I said last night; you've been eating too many ship's biscuits," she answered, muffling another cough as she moved around to sit beside him.

Sam rubbed his belly. "Speaking of food, Cook have breakfast done yet?"

Bronte rolled her eyes and shook her head. Though she teased Sam about his weight, in truth, he was fitter than most men. Where did he put all that food?

"I was looking for that Bible. I didn't expect to find you knockin' the dust from its spine," Bronte observed.

Sam looked sheepish and shrugged his shoulders.

"Something about dying makes a man think. If you hadn't saved me last night I ... well, I don't like to think where I might have ended up."

"You saying this Bible nonsense might not be nonsense after all?" she smiled.

"I'm not saying anything; just that, maybe, it's worth looking into, is all."

"That's what I thought too," she answered. "What're you reading?"

The Bible was open to the book of Romans. He read a passage aloud. "...Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, ...?"

He read on but her mind stuck on that phrase. She stared out at the endless sea pondering its meaning. A bird swooped from the sky and snatched an unsuspecting fish in its beak. She watched it struggle with its too big prize toward shore. Bronte wished she could ask Lucien about the verse. Her heart constricted as she considered that she might never be able to. What if he didn't make it? Could his God help him? Would He?

Sam's urgent cry snapped her back to attention.

He pointed seaward.

"Sail ho!" a seaman cried from aloft.

Bronte scrambled to her feet, pausing a moment as dizziness took her: She was having trouble drawing a full breath. Bronte retrieved the spyglass, leveling it at a sail visible through cliffs. It was too far off to make any distinction of it. Hopefully it would sail by. The Huntress couldn't be seen tucked away in the cove.