Read Online Daughter of Satan by Jean Plaidy - Free Book Online Page A

eyes seemed more brilliant than the sea itself.
    â€˜You’re hurting me,’ she said.
    â€˜That is my intention!’ he retorted. ‘You’ll know what it means to be hurt when they hang you for stealing.’
    â€˜I stole nothing.’
    â€˜I’ll have you searched. Stand away. Don’t dare come close to me, you dirty beggar! What insolence!’
    â€˜I’m not a beggar, and I’m not a thief. It is you who should be afraid of me.’
    â€˜I’ll have those rags stripped off you and searched. I’ll see you’re whipped before they hang you. I’ll ask it as a special favour to myself.’
    She had twisted her arm suddenly and freed herself, but he caught her by her hair.
    â€˜See that man hanging there?’ he demanded. ‘He deserted his ship. That’s what happens to dirty beggars who steal from their betters.’
    â€˜I have no betters,’ she said with dignity while she screwed up her face in pain, for he seemed to be pulling her hair out by the roots.
    His eyes blazed with rage. ‘Insolence! You’ll be sorry for this.’
    â€˜You’re the one who’ll be sorry. You don’t know who I am.’
    He looked into her face and laughed. ‘So it’s you . . . the Devil’s own, eh!’
    She was shaken, for she saw no fear in his face.
    â€˜Now do you know who
I
am?’ he asked.
    â€˜Yes, I do.’
    â€˜Then you know I use no idle words. I’ll have you whipped for your insolence.’
    â€˜You wouldn’t dare. No one would dare. I . . . I’d . . .’ She glared at him. ‘It would be the worse for you if you hurt me.’
    He let her go and she ran, and, turning round, saw that he had not moved, but was standing still watching her.
    She walked on with slow dignity, but as soon as she felt he could see her no more she broke into a run. She was trembling with fear and hatred, because she was not sure whether or not he had been afraid of her.
    Soon after that she heard that Bartle Cavill had run away tosea, and she was relieved. Afterwards life went on as usual. She was growing up; she was now ten years old.
    There seemed less excitement in the town nowadays. King Philip had been dead for a year, and there no longer seemed any great danger of raids on the coast. Just before his death it had been brought home to the King that he would never realize his ambitions. Plymouth had not even seen the ships of his Adelantado, which had come to invade, for a kindly storm had wrecked them in the Bay of Biscay. Such a disaster to ships – as grand and formidable as those of his great Armada – meant the end of his attempt to subdue England. But on the high seas rivalry continued.
    Somewhere out there, Tamar sometimes thought, was Bartle Cavill. Perhaps he had left his ship by now and was storming some city; perhaps he was cutting his way through the jungle; perhaps he was being tortured in a dungeon. All of these things might have happened to him. She thought of him with great hatred, not so much for the words he had used to her but for the contempt he had shown her in his brilliant blue eyes.
    Her lonely life continued. No children played with her, but she did not wish to play their games. She was learning a good deal from Granny Lackwell, and when people came to the cottage for herbs, Granny would say: ‘The child will pick them for you. The child knows.’
    Then Tamar would enjoy afresh that strange power which was hers.
    But one day she learned that people hated her because they feared her. The most terrifying experience of her life so far was awaiting her.
    It was dusk of an evening in summer and she was walking to a favourite haunt of hers – a shady spot with many trees which overhung a large pond. She often came here; she liked to sit by the pond and watch the birds and insects; she had learned to imitate the calls of the birds so that they answered her; and she liked to watch