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would be, I told myself. I felt utterly alone among the men now. I couldn’t even smile at Curry’s peculiar mutterings as he went rooting about in his galley, cooking up the foul messes which I would have to eat or else starve.
    Benjamin Stout, who had not ceased to speak kindly to me despite the cold way I behaved toward him, followed me around asking why I was wearing such a scowl.
    â€œLeave me be!” I cried at him finally, after he’d tracked me right to my hammock.
    â€œIf he speaks to someone, it won’t be to an egg-stealing cockroach like yourself, Ben Stout,” said Purvis, his head hanging above the ladder to our quarters like a moon that’s been roundly punched. “It won’t be a man who lets his shipmate hang in the shrouds for him.”
    â€œHe’s in such a dark mood,” Stout remarked in a pleasant tone as though he were conversing with a friend. “I was only worried what was bothering the boy.”
    Stout was surely the worst creature I’d ever known or heard about, worse even than Nicholas Spark.
    â€œWorried,” jeered Purvis. “You, worried! It’s only that evil curiosity of yours that makes you want to poke and pry and fiddle! Jessie, come up on deck. Come on now! There’s a good boy! Don’t sulk so! It makes us all worried, to be near the shore like this and not able to walk on it. But think, the voyage is half over. You’ll be home, if the trade winds are good to us, in just this time again. And richer too!” I didn’t move. “Well, if you won’t speak, I can’t hang here like a ham for smoking.”
    Ham. Oh, ham! And a cask of water!
    I stayed for a long time below, and I was left alone. Perhaps Purvis took pity on me and saw to it that I was not sent for. I softened a little in my feeling toward him partly because he’d spoken my very thoughts about the land teasing me there, so close, so out of reach.
    Time hung on us. Three days we sat there like a wooden bird. The sky threatened rain but rain never fell. Sharkey got into the rum and staggered about the deck shouting and cursing until Spark laid him flat with a belaying pin. The blood ran from the wound, then dried. I stared at his head with a hard heart. No one should have the advantage of me any more. I cast a murderous look at Spark’s back. I kicked the mast and cursed. No one took notice.
    The great cauldron I’d seen Curry scrubbing was brought up on deck. The Captain called all hands together and handed out pistols, but not to me or Purvis.
    â€œNot you, you serpent,” he said to Purvis. “You might put a bullet through the head of my last hen.” He said nothing to me.
    There were more than Sharkey who got into the rum. At night, the ship rang with snatches of blurred song, of shouted angry words, of broken silly laughter, and sometimes, of blows given and taken. Only Ned and Ben Stout stayed sober, Ned observing the goings-on with an indifferent eye, Ben, reading his small Bible by oil lamp with an aggrieved but forgiving look on his face. Once he assured me not to fear his mates. I hadn’t asked him for any assurance and told him so.
    On the fourth night, the Captain came aboard from wherever he’d been, followed by a tall thin coffee-colored man.
    Purvis and I watched them go into the Captains quarters. “That’s the cabociero ,” said Purvis. “He’s a Portuguese black, what you could call a broker. The Captain must pay him a tax for our anchorage here. Then they’ll get down to the trading.”
    There was only one ship left of the British Squadron. Its port and starboard lights glimmered prettily in the dark. I supposed the other ships were out blockading a river or chasing a Spanish slaver. They had not approached us.
    â€œHow is it the British haven’t gone after the Captain on his trips ashore?” I wondered aloud.
    â€œWe’ve a perfect right to sell and trade