Read Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WindTales 02 for Free Online

Captain realized that,” Patrick snarled through clenched teeth.
    Stevens nodded. “The screaming was a dead give away, I reckon,” he said with irony.
    “What happened then?” Weir asked, not liking the image of a terrified man caged in a death trap with
    water surging in all around him.
    “Well, we fought that storm for over three hours before she began to lessen any. By then, some of the
    canvas had shredded on the topgallants and I was sent aloft to reef ’em. It was while I was up in the
    rigging doing repairs that the blow came back harder than ever. I laid myself out on them yards like it was
    my dead wife's dear bosom and hung on for my life.
    “Them waves shot over us all of a sudden and through the rain, I saw the helmsman let go of the ship's
    wheel. One minute he was lashed to that wheel, the next he was over the side, his yelling lost in the wind.
    The ship ran head on over a coral reef and I heard this grinding sound all the way up to where I was a
    holding on for dear life. The topgallant let go with a snap, the sheets ripping all the way down, one half
    blowing out to sea, the other flinging itself around the mast where I was praying like I'd never prayed
    before.
    “Water surged up through the aft hatchway and I knew the hold was rapidly filling with water. The
    Captain yelled to man the jolly boats and even as he was shouting, the storm stopped."
    “Just like that?” Tarnes asked, disbelief in his voice.
    Stevens snapped his fingers. “Just like that! One minute we was all goners, the next we was heeling
    leeward, turning slowly like we was on a pivot and we dropped off that coral so quick it clicked our teeth
    together."
    Patrick Kasella, having been raised on the rolling waves of the sea, lifted one eyebrow in contempt and
    shot Stevens a look that said he didn't believe a word the old man was saying.
    “Believe it or not, as you will, but that was the way of it!"
    “They must have been in the eye of the storm,” Mr. Neevens commented.
    “And then?” Weir injected, quickly.
    Stevens drew himself up and directed his remarks to the Captain. “There wasn't that much damage done
    to the hull, you see. We got her patched up quick enough, but we'd still shipped a lot of water in the hold
    and we knowed she was going to have to be dry docked for a true repair. That was when the Captain
    had this notion about the lad."
    “He put him down in that hidden section behind the bulkhead,” Tarnes said. There was true grief in the
    old man's voice.
    Stevens nodded. “It seemed to me Captain Janssen was of a mind to let the lad drown down there.
    When I finally got down there to him, he was already waist deep in bilge and screaming for all he was
    worth.” The old man's eyes filled with tears. “I should have left the lad where he was. He really weren't in
    that much danger of drowning, you see; we'd patched the hole up pretty tight. But it was that mindless
    screaming, you see; it ate at my vitals. I couldn't stand it no more so I drug him out.” The old sailor wiped
    a hasty gnarled hand over his face. “He was clinging to me like a vine."
    “And then somebody found out you'd let him out?"
    There was a haunted look on the leathery face of Jarl Stevens. “Aye. That was the way of it."
    “And that's when they keelhauled him?"
    Stevens shook his head and turned his eyes out to sea. “No. Not then."
    “There was more?” Patrick asked, a finger of dread scraping down his back.
    Stevens nodded. “Mr. Kullen, the First Mate, he'd come down to check on the lad, to see why he'd
    stopped screaming. He saw me standing there holding the lad and all hell broke loose. He shouted for
    some men and they came skipping down that companionway like ghosts on the wind and they was all
    over me and the lad before you could say a word. They drug him topside at Mr. Kullen's orders, the lad
    begging them all the while not to put him back in the cage, thinking that was what they was up to."
    “But they had