The Sea Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page B

righteous to them, violence the solution to all riddles. And until he could divine some manner of escape, which at this moment seemed impossible, he had to dedicate himself to a single principle: survival. It was a familiar instinct—he had survived a long, hungry winter stranded on the banks of a frozen river, the cruelty of slavers, the obsession of an insane forest spirit, and the wild fury of the dreadful Wendigo. This was a new challenge, but Jack would endure.
    Finn, however, might well be dead in the next few minutes.
    Jack did nothing to draw attention to himself. The crew was occupied with the punishment being meted out, and no one seemed at all concerned that he might attempt escape. The ship measured perhaps one hundred feet from bow to stern, and its beam couldn’t have been wider than twenty-five feet. This was the extent of his world, at least for now. There were four small boats on board—used, he supposed, for hunting and going ashore from deep anchorage—but it wasn’t as if he could lower one into the water and paddle away unnoticed.
    Ghost, too, seemed almost to have forgotten about Jack’s presence.
    Johansen barked orders and two men—Vukovich and Kelly—dragged a struggling Finn to the front of the ship and held him still as others tied ropes to his wrists and ankles.
    â€œYou bastards!” Finn screamed, trying to shake free as they stripped him. “Stand up to him!”
    Vukovich grabbed him by the hair and forced Finn to meet his gaze. “For your greed? We should challenge ’im for that? No, Finn. You’ll take what’s coming.”
    Jack stood on the raised foredeck slightly away from the Larsen ’s crew, his own predicament almost forgotten as he watched the men force Finn toward the bow. He had heard of keelhauling—had read about it as a boy and included it in the pirate tales he shared with his chums—and so he knew what was to come. They would throw Finn overboard and drag him beneath the ship, right along the keel, where the hull would be caked with barnacles that would shred his skin to ribbons. The faster they dragged him, the tighter he would be held against the keel, and the worse his injuries. But if they went slowly, giving him slack to spare him the flaying, he could well drown.
    â€œI don’t understand,” Jack said, stepping up between the ogre and Louis, the short black man whom he had first seen when Ghost dragged him aboard. “I’d thought a man would be thrown over one side and dragged to the other. If they haul him fore to aft on a ship this size…”
    He glanced at them for answers. The ogre ignored him, scratching at his huge head. But Louis smiled to reveal an awful mouth: some teeth missing, some jagged as a shark’s, and that single upper canine made of gold.
    â€œIt’ll hurt, c’est vrai,” Louis said, in an island-lilted French accent. “But if he dies … c’est sa bonne fortune.”
    Jack frowned in confusion. “I don’t—”
    The ogre grunted and cleared his throat, tugging at his filthy beard. “If the captain lets him die, Finn’ll be lucky,” he said, his voice a deep rumble in his chest. “Fool wants to howl, thinks he can challenge Ghost, but he’s no match. If he lives, he’d best fall into line. You challenge Ghost and lose … better off in hell.”
    Then there was shouting and the pounding of feet on the deck, and Jack whipped round to see he had missed the moment when they hurled Finn off the bow. Vukovich and Kelly and two other men were running along beside the railings, ropes held taut, slowing only to feed the ropes around rigging, and Jack tried not to visualize Finn beneath the ship, holding his breath as barnacles ripped his skin. Sickened, he watched the men run as the rest of the small crew followed.
    A hand like an iron vise grabbed his arm and propelled him forward, slowly but far from