I remembered and was quiet; but there was a sick despair in my heart and I mourned Edward deeply.

Then the storm overtook us. I am sure we were never so near death as we were in that wild sea. Our galleon was mighty; she was seaworthy; she rode the water in her proud, gallant, dignified way, but even she must falter before the fury of such an onslaught.

All day the wind had been whipping up the white horses. We heard the excited voices of the sailors as they lowered the sails and closed the gunports and hatches.

The Captain ordered us to his cabin and said we were to stay there. We staggered down. We could not stand and the stools on which we sat were flung from one side of the ship to the other.

Jennet clung to me. Her lover was busy at his tasks. He had no time to spare for her now.

She was terrified. “Be we going to die, Mistress?” she asked.

“I doubt not the Captain will save the ship and us,” said Honey.

“To die … without confessing our sins,” said Jennet. “’Twould be a terrible thing.”

“I doubt your sins were very great, Jennet,” I soothed her.

“They be, Mistress,” she said. “They be terrible.”

“Nonsense,” I retorted. “I wish there was something we could do.”

“The Captain said we were to stay here,” said Honey.

“We could be drowned like rats in a trap.”

“What else should we do?” demanded Honey.

“There must be something. I’m going up to see.”

“Stay here,” said Honey.

I looked at her, now so obviously pregnant; I looked at Jennet, filled with a fear of dying with her sins on her; and I said authoritatively, “You will stay here, Honey, and Jennet will stay with you. Make sure that the mistress is as comfortable as it is possible for her to be,” I added to Jennet.

They stared at me in amazement, but I could not remain inactive, just waiting for death.

I was flung against the sides of the ship as I came onto the deck. The galleon was groaning her protest. Fortunately I was on the lee side or I should have been blown overboard. It was a stupid thing to have done to come on deck against the Captain’s orders, but it was more than I could endure to stay in that rattling cabin. The rain lashed the decks mercilessly; the wind shook the ship as a dog might shake a rat. I was saturated, for as the ship dipped the waves broke over her; the deck was slimy and dangerous. I knew that it would be folly for me to attempt to cross it and although I preferred the fresh air to the depth of the ship I knew that it was doubly dangerous to stay up there.

I fell against a man who was struggling with a bag of tools in one hand and a horn lantern in the other.

He did not recognize me in the gloom and must have thought I was a cabin boy, for he shouted something which I realized meant I was to take the lantern, so I did so and stumbled after him.

I followed him down into the bowels of the ship. It was eerie down there. I had escaped the roar of the wind and the torrential rain, but the air was close and fetid; the rancid smell of food was everywhere, and the groans and creaking of the ship seemed to proclaim her distress at the treatment she was being given and her inability to go on if the torture did not abate.

Men were working at the pumps. So we had sprung a leak; their faces gleamed in the light from the lantern.

I stood and held the lantern high. The man who had led me here was, I discovered, a carpenter’s mate and was there to find where the ship was leaking and to patch her up if possible.

The men cursed the ship and the sea and prayed for salvation all in the same breath.

I watched the men pumping with all their might, the sweat running down their faces.

They screamed at each other in Spanish, which I was beginning to understand a little.

They were all calling on the Mother of God to intercede for them and as they prayed they worked the pumps.

I saw Richard Rackell among them.

He noticed me too and gave me that rueful smile which I suppose was meant to imply contrition.

I retaliated with the contemptuous look I reserved for him and then I thought: This could well be our last hour on earth. I must at least try to discover what had made him deceive us so. I half smiled at him and the relief on his face was apparent. Someone shouted at me, for I had lowered the lantern. I was able to recognize what was required and held it high again.

That nightmare seemed to go on for a long time. My arms ached with holding the lantern, but at least that was better than inactivity. The galleon had taken on a new character; she was like a living person. She was taking a furious beating and standing up to it. I realized then a little of what Jake Pennlyon felt toward his Rampant Lion. He loved that ship perhaps as much as he could love anybody, and witnessing the fight for survival the galleon was making, I could understand that.

Two cabin boys came down to the pumps and one of them recognized me, for I heard him say something about the Señorita.

One of the men came over and looked at me closely. My hair hanging in wet strands down my back betrayed me.

The lantern was taken from me. I was pushed toward the companionway.

All about me were the rhythmic sounds of the pump; the carpenters were patching parts of the ship with thin strips of lead and ramming oakum into the spots where the sea was coming in.

I found my way back to the cabin.

Honey was distraught and when she saw me her face shone with relief.

“Catharine, where have you been?”

“I’ve been holding a lantern.” I was flung against the side of the cabin as I spoke. I got up and clung to the leg of the fixed table. I told the others to do the same. At least we could not be dashed about if we could keep our grip on that.

I thought the ship was going to turn over; she rose and leaned so that her starboard side must have been beneath the sea. She shivered as though she were being shaken and then seemed to remain in the position for minutes before she crashed down.

There was the sound of heavy objects being flung about. There were shouts and curses. If I had been on deck at that moment I should certainly have been swept overboard.

Honey murmured: “Oh, God, this is the end then.”

I felt my entire being crying out in protest. I would not die. There was so much I had to discover. I must know for what purpose we had been abducted. I must see Jake Pennlyon again.

After that, although the storm raged, it began to abate a little. It was terrifying yet, but the ship was still standing up to the storm and the worst appeared to be over.

For hours the wind continued to shake us; the ship went on creaking and groaning; we could not stand up, but at least we were all together.

I looked at Honey; she lay exhausted, her long lashes beautiful against her pale skin. I was overcome with a kind of protective love for her; and I wondered when her child would be born and what effect these terrible happenings might have on it.

On an impulse I bent over and kissed her cheek. It was a strange thing for me to do, for I was not demonstrative. She opened her eyes and smiled at me.

“Catharine, we’re still here then?”

“We’re alive still,” I said.

“And together,” she added.

For two days and nights the storm had raged, but it was over now. The waters had lost their fury; they were smooth blue-green and only the occasional white horse ruffled them.

There was cold food only—biscuits and salt meat—and we were hungry enough to enjoy it.

The Captain came to the cabin while the storm was still raging and inquired for us. I noticed how he looked at Honey, tender, reassuring.

“We are riding the storm,” he told us. “The ship has come through. But we shall have to put into port to repair the damage.”

My heart leaped. In port. It would not be an English port, of course. No Spanish galleon would dare risk that. But the word “port” excited me. We might escape and find our way back to England.