Read Minerva's Voyage for Free Online

was.
    â€œI dunno.”
    â€œPiggsley, I’ll be bound, with his loose lips.” Scratcher toyed with his knife again.
    â€œNo, Master Thatcher. ’Tweren’t him.” Proule drew back. “Sorry, sir. I got beyond myself. It’s the drink in me talking.”
    â€œWatch your mouth in future or I’ll watch it for you.”
    â€œAye, sir, Master Thatcher.”
    Scratcher pushed him off the hogshead and sat on it himself. “I’m the most important person in this dungeon of a hold. Boors wants me for secretary in Virginia — or wherever.” He waved his skinny hand in the air.
    â€œThat’s good news,” muttered Proule, staggering up and trying to look agreeable, a rather difficult task given his features. His face finally rearranged itself into a horrid grimace beneath his bald pate, his tombstone teeth on display. I couldn’t blame him for trying though. Eventually everyone knuckled under to Scratcher. He could be fierce and frightening as a corcodillo, and corcodillos ate men and boys whole, didn’t they? Or so Oldham had warned me when I wouldn’t recite my Latin.
    â€œI play along,” said Scratcher. “But I mean to make my fortune. Don’t want to work for any man but myself anymore.”
    â€œAnd so say all of us, every man jack of us. Amen.” Proule sat down on the dirty floor and took a long draught of ale. Scratcher drank also, his legs splayed so wide he almost fell backwards off the hogshead. They both hiccupped. It was time for me to find out more. While they were both so drunk they’d sleep like the dead. With Fence as my lookout, I would go scavenging this night. I crossed myself for luck.

C HAPTER 8

H ORRIBLE P ROULE THE G HOUL
    Midnight at least. Hot as an oven. Quiet, except for Scratcher’s snores, which shook our part of the hold. Fence lit a stub of a candle he’d brought from Boor’s cabin. His face haloed in the dark. I put my hands on the chest, felt around for the secret knob, and pressed. The lid sprang open.
    â€œMove the candle over here,” I hissed. “I can’t see.”
    Fence sniffed, scrunching up his nose, and lifted the candle. The circle of dim light moved from his face to the contents of the chest, and I started to rummage through them. An emblem. Another emblem, neither of them the ship in the storm, which Scratcher must still have about him. And finally, a third emblem.
    â€œLook at that!” I whistled.
    â€œShh. What is it?” whispered Fence. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
    â€œIt’s a cipher wheel. Right there on that emblem. It’s used to decipher secret messages. And it’s telling us there’s a hidden message here that we have to decipher. I’m sure of it.”

    â€œTake it out.”
    â€œNo. I’m only going to look, and maybe take one small thing so Scratcher doesn’t notice. If we take a wad of papers, he’ll smoke us out right away. Besides…”
    â€œThere’s only so much you can hide under a holey shirt and threadbare jerkin,” said Fence.
    â€œTrue it is.”
    Fence was not such a dunce, after all.
    I went back to the chest and riffled under the three emblems. All that was beneath them was a mysterious piece of vellum. I stared at it. The alphabet was on the left in separate columns, with a different arrangement of x’s and y’s by each letter.
    â€œWhat’s that?” asked Fence, sniffing again.
    â€œI’m not sure. But it’s important as hell or my name’s not Robin Starveling,” said I, examining it. “Hold the candle closer.”
    A xxxxx G xxyyx N xyyxx T yxxyx
B xxxxy H xxyyy O xyyxy U/V yxxyy
C xxxyx I/J xyxxx P xyyyx W yxyxx
D xxxyy K xyxxy Q xyyyy X yxyxy
E xxyxx L xyxyx R yxxxx Y yxyxx
F xxyxy M xyxyy S yxxxy Z yxyyy
    It wasn’t very clear despite the light cast by the candle, but I kept looking at the vellum till