Jon-Tom watched the energetic Captain Magriff lead the counterattack, his crew silently and determinedly following the badger as they plunged into the pirates’ midst. With the aid of the passengers they were slowly overwhelming the attackers.
A few unlucky brigands were cut down as they tried to make it back to their ship. The survivors tossed what they’d been able to steal over the side, followed it down the lines and cut themselves free. Those on board the catamaran sent a stream of curses and insults in their wake.
Jon-Tom and Mudge listened as the ship’s officers argued with the captain. Several were for putting on additional sail and turning to pursue their fleeing assailants. Magriff would have none of that.
“Stow that spray, gentlebeings. We nay go chasin’ after phantoms this night. Listen to your heads for a minute instead o’ yer hearts. With a strong wind at our backs we might overtake ’em, but the breeze tonight is light and out o’ the east instead o’ the north. Not only would we have to work a change in course, but in such a light wind a smaller boat could easily outmaneuver us. And they might have friends a-waitin’ for ’em somewhere out on the dark sea. It would not make good sense to go a-chasin’ in pursuit o’ some wounded blackguards only to find ourselves confronted by two or three vessels o’ the criminal class. Our first responsibility be to our passengers and cargo. Remember that and belay any talk o’ wild pursuits.” He stepped up onto a capstan.
“Mister Foison, check the stores and see what we have lost. See to the below-decks cargo as well. I’ll want a list of damages for insurance purposes. Mister Opoltin!” A tall, sinewy marten with blood on his muzzle snapped to attention. “You and Doctor Kesswith see to any injured. Passengers first, crew second, officers last.”
“Yes sir!” The marten vanished.
Two crew men arrived with the body of the dead aye-aye. The primate who had saved the ship was barely three and a half feet tall. His long tail lay curled stiffly over his back.
“Saved the ship and surely saved us,” murmured the captain. “A hero’s burial at sea as befits a good sailor, and company damages to his survivors. I’ll see to it.” The badger turned to his third mate. “Check with the doctor and let me know who else be hurt. You,” he snapped at another officer, “get a squad up here armed with mops and brooms. Buckets and scrubs, mister Seevar. Let’s get this mess cleaned up and this deck looking shipshape. Double the watch until further notice. We nay want to chance bein’ surprised again.”
Mudge was staring out across the ocean. His face was alive, his eyes shining. “That weren’t such a bad evenin’s entertainment, now were it?” The otter loved a good fight, provided the numbers were on his side. He looked back at his taller companion and frowned.
“Hey now, mate, you’ve been cut.”
Jon-Tom touched his left side. The small trickle of red was already drying up. “Just a scratch.”
The otter nevertheless inspected the shallow gash closely. “So it ’tis.” He grinned up at the tall human. “Remember when our good friend Clothahump first brought you into this world and dumped you on top o’ me?”
“Sure, I remember. You tried to run me through, but you were too scared to strike a hard blow.”
“Wot, me scared o’ a bald scarecrow like you? I just saw no reason to kill when I could strike a warnin’ blow first.” The otter peered past him at the crowd still milling about on deck. Everyone was too excited to go back to sleep. “Wonder where Weegee is? Surely she wouldn’t ’ave missed a good knockabout like this.”
“Maybe she slept through it.” He leaned on his staff, suddenly exhausted. The sleep he hadn’t enjoyed was starting to catch up with him. From the position of the moon it had to be around three or four in the morning. Nocturnal fights weren’t to his liking.
“She’ll be damned upset if she did.” Mudge darted down the nearest gangway, leaving Jon-Tom alone on deck as the passengers began to return to their cabins and the crew to bed or duty stations.
Except for the unlucky aye-aye who’d sounded the alarm, there were no fatalities among the ship’s complement. There were wounded, however, and dead pirates to be unceremoniously dumped overboard.
He started back toward his own bed only to find an anxious Mudge confronting him at the top of the stairs. “She ain’t in ’er cabin, mate. I don’t suppose…?”
Jon-Tom shook his head. “I haven’t seen her. She probably came up through the other hull. Don’t worry, Mudge. She’s on board. She has to be. Maybe she’s down in the galley having something to eat, or maybe she’s helping with the wounded.”
“That’d be like ’er.” The otter pleaded gently. “Could you ’elp me ’ave a look-see, mate? I’d be obliged. Wouldn’t be able to sleep until we found ’er.”
“Of course.”
But Weegee wasn’t in the dining area, or was she helping to bind up the injuries the crew had suffered. Word was passed to the captain, who ordered an immediate search to ascertain passenger Weegee’s location. As time passed and one crew member after another reported negatively to the bridge, Mudge grew progressively more frantic.
Enlightenment came not from one of the searching sailors but from a passenger who happened to overhear their concern. She was immediately escorted to the bridge to tell her tale to Jon-Tom, Mudge, the captain and his first officers. The jerboa belle was still clad in a lacy pink nightdress which had been torn in several places. As she spoke she nervously preened the black tuft at the tip of her tail. Her eyelashes were nearly as big as her feet, Jon-Tom noted.
“The otter you speak of was near me. We shared cabins by the place where the pirates first came on board. She went out on deck with her knife.”
Mudge nudged his friend in the ribs. “Told you Weegee weren’t the one to pass up a good fight.” He raised his voice slightly. “Bet she’s restin’ in somebody else’s cabin right now, wot?”
“I’m afraid she may not be,” said the jerboa sadly. “I am sure now that I saw her go over the side in the arms of an agouti.”
Jon-Tom swallowed. “You mean you think she’s on the pirate ship?”
The jerboa nodded, her whiskers trembling. Obviously a high-strung type. “If she is still alive, the poor brave thing. I told her not to join the fight until the rest of the crew appeared, but she would not listen to me.”
“That’s Weegee for sure,” Mudge muttered. “You’re sure now, lass, that this agouti took her onto the boat and that they didn’t just land in the water?
“As sure as I can be, for I listened and there was no splash.” She put her narrow bewhiskered face in her hands and began to sob. “It would have been so much better had she died on board here. A nasty business, nasty.”
“You didn’t see them kill her?” Jon-Tom asked the question because he knew Mudge couldn’t.
“Why should they kill her?” The jerboa looked up at them, wiping at her tears. “A live prisoner is worth infinitely more than a dead one, especially a brave attractive one. I think I saw the pirate captain order the poor thing taken below decks to keep her from escaping.” She shuddered. “He was a frightening-looking fellow. I think he must have been the captain because he was standing atop the center cabin giving orders. A leopard, big, nearly as big as you.” She nodded toward Jon-Tom. “Almost handsome he was, but there was nothing attractive in his demeanor.” A finger went to her lips as she continued playing with her tail.
“You know something—I didn’t think of it at the time, but his tail didn’t look quite right.”
“A strange thing to say,” commented Magriff. “How do you mean, madame?”
“Well, it looked as if the last half of it was stiff and frozen. It didn’t twitch once, didn’t move at all. Almost as though it was artificial, yes, that was it. Artificial.” She looked pleased at finally puzzling it out. “I am sure that at some time that leopard’s tail had been cut off and that a false end has been substituted for the missing piece.”
Jon-Tom listened in disbelief. He and Mudge had once made the acquaintance of a leopard with half a tail. It was not an acquaintance either of them wished to renew.
“Mudge?”
“Anythin’s possible in the world, mate,” said the otter grimly. “Old Corroboc’s dead, but we watched ’is bastard crew go sailin’ off in another direction on this very same ocean not that many months ago.”
Jon-Tom remembered their narrow escape from the bloodthirsty pirate parrot Corroboc. His first mate had been a muscular, sadistic leapord named Sasheem. Sasheem of the prosthetic tail. There could not be two of them, not even on an ocean as big as the Glittergeist.
“I wonder how many others of the original crew are with him?”
