The buccaneers. They lived in a world like none she had ever seen. As the shouts, curses, songs, and snatches of music drifted out over the gentle surf, she had to remind herself that this raffish settlement was the home of brigands unwelcome in any other place. Yet from her vantage now, they seemed like harmless, jovial children.
Still, anchored alongside the Defiance were some of the most heavily armed brigantines in the New World—no bottom here carried fewer than thirty guns. The men, too, were murderers, who killed Spanish civilians as readily as infantry. Jacques le Basque presided over the most dreaded naval force in the New World. He had done more to endanger Spain's fragile economy than all the Protestant countries together. If they grew any stronger, the few hundred men on this tiny island might well so disrupt Spain's vital lifeline of silver from the Americas as to bankrupt what once had been Europe's mightiest empire. . . .
The report of a pistol sounded from somewhere along the shore, followed by yells of glee and more shots. Several men in Spanish finery had begun firing into the night to signal the commencement of an impromptu celebration. As they marched around a keg of liquor, a cluster of women, prostitutes from the taverns, shrieked in drunken encouragement and joined in the melee.
"This place is very frightening, senhora." Serina shivered and edged next to Katherine. Her hair was tied in a kerchief, African style, as it had been for all the voyage. "I have never seen branco like these. They seem so crazy, so violent."
"Just be thankful we're not Spaniards, or we'd find out just how violent they really are."
"Remember I once lived in Brazil. We heard stories about this place."
"'Tis quite a sight, Yor Ladyships." John Mewes had ambled over to the railing, beside them, to watch for Winston. "The damnedest crew of rogues and knaves you're ever like to make acquaintance with. Things've come to a sad pass that we've got to try recruitin' some of this lot to sail with us."
"Do you think they're safe ashore, John?"
"Aye, Yor Ladyship, on that matter I'd not trouble yourself unduly." Mewes fingered the musket he was holding. "You should've seen him once down at Curasao, when a gang of Dutch shippers didn't like the cheap price we was askin' for a load of kill-devil that'd fallen our way over at . . . I forget where. Threatened to board and scuttle us. So the Captain and me decided we'd hoist a couple of nine-pound demi's up on deck and stage a little gunnery exercise on a buoy floatin' there on the windward side o' the harbor. After we'd laid it with a couple of rounds, blew it to hell, next thing you know the Butterboxes . . ."
"John, what's that light over there? Isn't that him?"