Read HF - 03 - The Devil's Own for Free Online Page B

her, with his pockets overflowing with gold, she would look on him differently. And together they would recreate a race of giants, like Edward Warner and Tony Hilton, because that was what their children would be, part Warner and part Hilton, destined to rule these islands.
    But when next he saw her she would be an old married woman, and probably a mother several times over. He felt so disconsolate his legs drooped and his breath went, and he trod water, and looked up at the immense bulk of the island in front of him. It had not moved, had grown no larger and no smaller. So then, he lacked the strength to go on. He would drown here, disappear forever in the narrow strait between Tortuga and Hispaniola, and be totally forgotten. In all the world, there was no one who would wish to remember Kit Hilton. Jean? For a while, perhaps. Because Jean would survive. He had the gift of survival within him.
    And Marguerite Warner? Would she ever remember the boy who had dumped her in the water butt? They had been happy that evening after the Warners had left. Grandmama had laughed and Madame DuCasse had sung to them and Monsieur D'Ogeron and Monsieur DuCasse had told stories as they had drunk Grandmama's wine. Now all were gone, and all were forgotten.
    'Kit. Kit?' Jean, splashing about close to him.
    He opened his mouth, swallowed water, and went down, and touched sand. He bobbed back up to the surface, and Jean seized his arms and pulled him into the shallows.
    He knelt, up to his waist in water, and panted, and listened to his heart throb. 'You should not have come back.'
    'We are matelots. We do not exist, without each other. Listen. To the silence.'
    Kit could hear nothing save the beating of his own heart. 'My throat is parched.'
    'And mine also. But we had best not leave the beach in the darkness,' Jean said. 'We shall sleep here, and explore tomorrow. But we are alive, Kit, there is the important thing. We arc alive, and we will stay alive.'
    Alive. He crawled out of the water, and crawled and crawled and crawled, dragging each leaden limb after its mate until he was on dry sand, and flopped on his face. God, how exhausted he was. Only a mile, and he seemed to have swum for ever.
    Jean fell beside him, was instantly asleep. Jean had saved his life just now, by reminding him that he could do nothing but live or die. His head dropped, and he dozed, and was immediately awake again. His tongue seemed cloven to the roof of his mouth. To sleep, without slaking that thirst, would be impossible. So once again he crawled, hand over hand, knee in front of knee, across the sand, until the sand changed to grass, and he heard the trickle of running water.
    Now he got to his feet, staggered through the grass, ignored the branches which brushed his face and pulled at his hair, and fell, half into a flow of the most beautiful fresh water he had ever tasted. He drank, and buried his face in the sweetness, and drank again, and scooped it over his head and shoulders, and drank again. And at last pulled himself away. He must tell Jean about it. But Jean seemed soundly asleep. Time for him in the morning.
    Kit Hilton slept.
    And woke to a peculiar sound, such as he had never heard before. Snarling dogs. But these were not dogs. He had heard dogs often enough before. His own dog.
    He sat up. It was daylight. His arms and legs still felt tired, but his brain was clear and his thirst was gone. And two human dogs were snarling and growling close to him.
    On the beach. And now there was another sound, a shout of alarm, from Jean.
    Kit jumped to his feet, pushed his way through the branches, arrived at the edge of the beach, gazed at Jean in horror. His friend lay on his back, arms pinned by a creature which sat on them and held his head. But the creature was a human being. Almost entirely shrouded in long hair, a beard which drooped to his navel, his skin burned to a mahogany colour, for he wore only a kind of kilt, from his waist to his knees.
    And he was