Page 144 of A Column of Fire

‘Yes.’ He stood up.

To his surprise, she kissed his lips, briefly and softly. ‘Come at sundown,’ she said.

*

‘DO YOU BELIEVEin love at first sight?’ Barney said to Bella three weeks later.

‘Maybe, I don’t know.’

They were in bed at her house, and the sun had just risen. The new day was already warm, so they had thrown off the bedclothes. They slept naked: there was no need for nightwear in this climate.

Barney had never set eyes on anything as lovely as Bella’s golden-brown body carelessly splayed across a linen sheet in the morning light. He never tired of gazing at her, and she never minded.

He said: ‘The day that I went to speak to Don Alfonso, and I glanced across the square and saw you come out of this house rolling a barrel, and you looked up and met my eye – I fell for you right then, not knowing anything at all about you.’

‘I might have turned out to be a witch.’

‘What did you think, when you saw me staring at you?’

‘Well, now, I can’t say too much, in case you get a swollen head.’

‘Go on, take the risk.’

‘At that moment, I couldn’t really think at all. My heart started beating fast and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I told myself it was just a white man with peculiar-coloured hair and a ring in his ear, nothing to get excited about. Then you just looked away, as if you hadn’t really noticed me, and I figured it really was nothing to get excited about.’

Barney was deeply in love with her, and she with him, and they both knew it, but he had no idea what they were going to do about it.

Bacon had sold almost all the slaves, and those that remained were mostly rejects, men who had fallen ill on the voyage, pregnant women, children who had pined away after separation from their parents. The hold of theHawkwas bursting with gold, sugar and hides. Soon the ship would sail for Europe, and this time it seemed Bacon really did mean to go to Combe Harbour.

Would Bella go home with Barney? It would mean giving up everything she knew, including a successful business. He was afraid to ask her the question. He did not even know whether Bacon would permit a woman on board for the voyage home.

So should Barney give up his old life and settle here in Hispaniola? What would he do? He could help Bella expand the rum business. He could become a sugar planter, perhaps, though he had no capital to invest. It was a big step to take after less than a month in a place. But he wanted to spend his life with Bella.

He had to talk to her about the future. The unasked question was always in his mind, and perhaps hers too. They had to face it.

He opened his mouth to speak, and Jonathan Greenland walked in.

‘Barney!’ he said. ‘You have to come, now!’ Then he saw Bella and said: ‘Oh, my good God, she’s gorgeous.’

It was a clumsy remark, but Bella’s beauty could have a distracting effect on a normally intelligent man even when she was fully clothed. Barney smothered a grin and said: ‘Get out of here! This is a lady’s bedroom!’

Jonathan turned his back, but did not leave. ‘I’m sorry, Señorita, but it’s an emergency,’ he said.

‘It’s all right,’ Bella said, pulling the sheet over her. ‘What’s the crisis?’

‘A galleon approaching, fast.’

Barney leaped out of bed and pulled on his breeches. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said to Bella as he pushed his feet into his boots.

‘Be careful!’ she said.

Barney and Jonathan ran out of the house and across the square. TheHawkwas already lifting its anchor. Most of the crew were on deck and in the rigging, unfurling the sails. The mooring ropes had been untied from the jetty, and the two latecomers had to leap across a gap of a yard onto the deck.

Once safely on board, Barney looked across the water. A mile to the east was a Spanish galleon bristling with guns, coming at them fast with a following wind. For three weeks he had forgotten about the danger he and the rest of the crew were in. But now the forces of law and order had arrived.

The crew used long poles to push theHawkaway from the jetty and out towards deeper water. Captain Bacon turned the ship west, and the wind filled the sails.

The galleon was riding high in the water, suggesting it carried little or no cargo. It had four masts, with more sails than Barney could count at a glance, giving it speed. It was broad in the beam, and had a high aft castle, which would make it relatively clumsy to turn; but in a straight race it could not fail to catch theHawk.