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pounded the door until her hands were sore then cried out in
despair. The ship would sail without her.
    Slumping to the floor, she smothered a sob.
The windows on the street floor were barred. Tears welled in her
eyes. All was lost. She had not been stealthy enough. He had
guessed her plans to leave and proved it in the cruelest way. She
felt a wrenching emptiness in her heart as she stood and twisted
the knob again with all her might. But there was no use. There was
no way out.
    She gave a desperate little laugh, then
swallowed hard and grabbed her bag. She would not be caught like a
mouse in a trap. With energy born of defiance she climbed the
stairs and quickly stripped the sheets from his mattress and hers.
Knotting them together, she tied one end to her bag and the other
to her bed frame.
    A bump of the bag hitting the ground assured
her the makeshift rope stretched far enough for climbing down. She
started out the window, then stopped with a jolt at the click of a
door opening and pounding footsteps on the stairs. A hard knot
formed in her stomach; still she turned and raced to the bedroom
door and jammed a chair against it. She felt her breath catch in
her throat as the door was secured, then she shook herself into
action once more and clambered out the window.
    Silvia’s lips thinned with anger as she
swung past the sill, half falling, half climbing to the alley
below. Her breath gushed out as she dropped the last five feet,
bruising her backside and not worrying about the noise. Above, the
splintering sound of the door crashing in hurried Silvia to her
feet.
    “You’ve nowhere to go Missy! You’ll be
back!” Uncle Hollister yelled contemptuously from the window.
    Silvia turned and hurried away in the cover
of the fog, following streets she knew as well as the back of her
hand. Each footstep loosened a painful memory that burned like a
scorching, silver flash in her mind. But with a spurring
determination, she plunged on.
    Soon the penetrating dampness came to her
aid. Before walking far she was shivering with chill and
concentrating on reaching her destination as quickly as possible
with lessening fear her uncle could overtake her. As she approached
the docks, where the activity of loading cargo had slowed or
stopped as the fog grew denser, she thought only of Wilhelm
Schlange and what awaited her in the colonies.
    In the distance she could faintly
distinguish the imposing lines of the Eastwind , a larger
craft than those about her. A yellow flag emblazoned with an
ogresish red serpent flapped a beckoning signal as it trailed from
the main mast. Silvia sighted it through a thinning patch of fog
and hastened along thankful for the foresight to have located the
ship days before.
    She could see the decks crowded with cargo.
The hold had been left partially empty to accommodate a dozen
bondservants bound for Schlange Island, she among them. The large
overflow of barrels and crates were lashed topside, filling every
available spot. Silvia breathed a sigh of relief to be so close,
for moments earlier she had been startled by the whispered murmur
of voices not far behind her.
    Knowing the danger on the docks, her heels
now clicked rapidly on the rough cobblestones as she hurried to
board the Eastwind . Still there were bales and boxes of
cargo to weave her way through before she could reach the ship.
    “Do you see her?” a shrill, youthful voice
pierced the fog no more than four paces back.
    Silvia drew a sharp breath and fear stabbed
at her chest in a dozen places.
    “Ahead by the bale!” another voice, a raspy
one, answered from beyond the boxes.
    Was it only her qualmish imagination or did
they pursue her? Silvia darted forward, her eyes wild with fright.
A sudden flux of sounds, the scrape of a box being moved, the clank
of a chain against the side of a ship, joined the pounding of
hurried footsteps behind her. A bitter taste of fear filled her
mouth and her heart seemed to leap to her throat.
    Just ahead she