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The captain bellowed in agonized fury.
As the embers flew, a single fleck of fiery sulfur found the collapsed area
of deck in the barque's stern. Directly below were stored the ship's powder
kegs.
No attacking navy could have had the effect of that single speck of flame as
it settled upon the volatile barrel stacked among two and twenty others.
TheGriffinblew herself to pieces. In a matter of seconds, Samuel found
himself in the water. It was that sudden .
Like most of the crew, he could not swim. He floundered in the waves,
splashing wildly for just a few seconds before dipping beneath them.
This is it, then,he thought . What a strange place for an English climbing
boy to end his life.
That life had not been a happy one. Yet as he sank deeper into the blackness,
he realized wistfully how very much he wanted to live.
Suddenly, he was struck in the chest by a hard object rising from below.
Instinctively, he clasped his arms around it, and it bore him upward. He broke
to the surface, gasping and choking, and stared at the object that was keeping
him afloat. It was a piece of the ship's carved figurehead, broken off in the
explosion.
"Boy Samuel! Over here!"
A short distance away, the captain flailed at the water in some semblance of
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swimming.
Samuel stared. There were no other cries for help, no struggling sailors. Of
forty men, he and Blade were the only two left alive.
"Samuel hold on, lad, and kick your way over to me!"
In this most dire of circumstances, Samuel thought of the murdered Spanish
prisoners, the victims in Portobelo, the abused crew of theGriffin,and of
Evans the sail maker, who had died at this cruel man's hands .
"Hurry, boy! Your captain needs you!"
Without hesitation, Samuel began to paddle in the opposite direction. He paid
no attention to the volley of threats and oaths that were hurled after him.
And when the tirade stopped, Samuel looked back and noted that James Blade had
disappeared into the sea.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dawn was breaking through the overcast as the storm moved off to Martinique
and points east. Captain Bourassa and the skeleton crew aboard theAdventurer
set about repairing the ship's fried electrical systems.
Star paced the deck like a caged tiger, her limp barely noticeable because of
her speed and grim tension. It had been four hours since they had last been
able to speak to the bell. And then the divers had been involved in a
life-and-death struggle against an adversary in a half-ton suit.
"How soon till we get comms. back up?" she asked for the fifth time that
hour.
Henri had the console open and was soldering burned wire. "No sooner for the
asking so much," he replied, and added kindly, "English, he is the best. If
anyone can bring home your friends "
That was the problem, Star thought.English was a great diver, but he wasn't
all-powerful .
If anything's happened to them, I'll never forgive myself for surviving!
What a weird twist that getting bent might have saved her life.
She bit back her impatience, and frowned as thePonce de Léon approached out
of the morning mist, and began to draw alongside. Through the haze, she could
make out both Cutter and Reardon on deck.
A deep resentment welled up inside Star. Cutter had been the enemy from the
beginning. Why trust him now? True, he had warned them about Marina. But what
if that was a trick? A lift basket stuffed with a fortune hung dead in the
water, somewhere below theAdventurer , waiting for power to be restored to the
winch. Any piece of that load could be used as evidence in court for a
treasure hunter to claim the wreck as his own.
At that moment, Star didn't know what ordeal her friends might have been
through, or even if they were alive or dead. But she could be certain of this:
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They would never forgive her if she allowed their find to fall into the greedy
hands of Tad Cutter.
She squinted at the winch, trying to size up the amount of cable wound around
the wheel. Surely the basket wasn't too far beneath the surface now.
As she climbed the metal ladder down to the dive platform, the words of her
doctor resounded in her ears: "You must never dive again. Another case of the
bends, and you will surely be in a wheelchair for life."
Sorry, Doc, but this one's a must.
And she jumped into the sea.
Her fears disappeared the instant the water closed over her. How could
anything that felt so right do her harm? She held her breath, descending
effortlessly along the winch cable. She kept her eyes open, almost enjoying
the stinging salt. The ocean was clear and quite bright despite the fact that
the sun had not yet burned off the morning mist.
At last, the basket came into view, hanging at about forty feet. Her heart
nearly stopped at the sight of it.
Oh, my God! I knew they found treasure, but this is the mother lode!
Silver turned black; pearls and gems faded. But gold was always gold. It was
spectacular something out of a fairy tale.
She grabbed a solid-gold candlestick and reached for a rope of pearls to wrap
around her neck.
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