Run Afoul Read Online Free PDF Page B

which was just above the holds. The little Swallow had only two levels—the open deck, where the fifteen-man crew worked, and the deck below, which was divided into after cabin, steerage, and forecastle. Suddenly, the adjustment he was forced to make seemed overwhelming again.
    Then Festin whined in English, “I want sleep here with you.”
    â€œHere?” exclaimed Mr. Grimes. The instrumentmaker’s voice was high with utter horror. “In this room? ”
    â€œOn floor,” elaborated Robert Festin, grinning coaxingly.
    â€œImpossible!” Grimes shrieked.
    â€œHe can’t sleep in the same room with Mr. Grimes,” said Jack Winter, his tone shocked. “It ain’t bloody nice, if you’ll excuse my biblical language.”
    Wiki agreed. If he had been alone, he would have had no problem with Festin curling up in a blanket on the floor—or on the spare bunk, for that matter—but coping with a hysterical instrumentmaker and an obstinate Acadian cook at one and the same time was unthinkable. Accordingly, he took a firm grip of Festin’s collar and hauled him down the corridor, while the Acadian squirmed, saying, “Please, Wiki, please.”
    Hardening his heart, Wiki carried on to the nearest hatchway ladder, keeping a sharp eye out for Lieutenant Smith. As they descended, darkness rose to surround them. The gun deck was very dim, because the skylight had been taken away when the afterhouse had been built, and so it was lit with scuttles only. Farther forward, Wiki could just see the eight twenty-four-pounder carronades which, with the two nine-pounder chasers on the main deck, was all that was left of the sloop’s original cannonry. They were lashed along the sides amidships, and their shiny black paint gleamed faintly in the light that peeked in about the edges of the shut gunports.
    In the wide space between each pair of guns, chests and lockers were stacked against the side of the ship. A tin number was nailed to the wall above them to tell the number of the mess that gathered to eat their meals here. Wiki wondered how the devil he would manage to find a number for Festin, who was now grumbling constantly in an undertone. There were more metal ciphers fastened above hammock hooks driven into the heavy beams, and he gathered that each seaman had a hammock number, too. The job of getting Festin settled was becoming more daunting by the minute.
    Far forward, Wiki could glimpse occupied hammocks hanging like ripe fruit, swaying gently with the slow roll of the ship, the off-duty seaman inside each one snoring away the last half hour of his watch below. Beyond the sleeping shapes, immediately before the foot of the foremast, implike silhouettes labored in front of a fire—cooks working at the ship’s galley, where the food for the ship’s common company was cooked.
    It was tempting to walk the length of the ship, and take Festin there, but instead Wiki turned toward the stern. At last the Acadian’s stream of plaintive complaints had silenced. Apart from the creak of the hull, a few footsteps from above, and the squeak of ropes, this part of the ship seemed very quiet—unnaturally so. Then Wiki heard a queer, loud pattering.
    Festin whined with superstitious horror. The fine hairs on the nape of Wiki’s neck quivered. Then he glimpsed a gray flow of movement, and swung around, narrowly missing cracking his head on a beam. He saw a dozen rats scuttle from one shadowed partition to another in a quick, ragged procession, swore softly to himself, took a firmer grip on the shivering Festin, and carried on.
    Here, in the after part of the gun deck, cabins lined both sides of the ship. Through some of the open doors he could see the clutter of officers’ gear, and recognized Forsythe’s stateroom by the great rack of antlers that hung on the wall, but the Virginian was nowhere to be seen. From the farthest door aft came such a happy