Betrayal in Tortuga

Chapter 3

"Land-ho! Land-ho! Haiti awaits!" Louise shouted with enough force behind her voice to wake the dead. Hubert jumped; Louise had yelled straight into his ear.

"Yeah, we know! We're not a mile away!" He cuffed her head with his palm. "Go start preparing the sails for docking."

"What's got you in such a hurry?" she grumbled, rubbing her greasy hair as she walked away.

The ship docked without a hitch. Daumont announced to everybody that they were free to take care of what they needed in Tortuga, provided they return to the ship at nightfall. Hubert kept distractingly glancing toward the market.

"That will only be difficult if you waste all our time yapping!" he yelled up at Daumont.

Daumont ignored him. "I present to you all, Tortuga!" His announcement was met with raucous cheers from the crew, who began to make their way off the ship to tend to their needs.

"I need a new tunic," Louise chattered to an uninterested crewmate. Hubert didn't match the pace of the others, rather immediately hurrying off the ship, muscles tense. Daumont was suspicious but distracted by something else. He jumped down from the box he'd been standing on and immediately began to search for Marguerite. It was the captain and first mate's duty to set up the exchange of their stolen goods with their Tortuga-based buyer, Mr. Caïn, but she hadn't been out on the deck with the rest of the crew. He found her in her room, lying on her hammock, facing toward the wall.

"Marguerite?" He crossed the threshold and took a step into the room. "We have to meet with Mr. Caïn, he will have seen la Miséricorde dock." Still she didn't respond. Daumont took the remaining steps to reach her hammock and tapped her shoulder.

"Huh?" She lifted her head.

"Mr. Caïn. We're in Haiti."

"Oh, you can go on without me, I'm not really feeling up to it today," she weakly dropped her head back to the fabric of her hammock.

"Hubert's been acting strangely." Daumont pressed his lips together. Rumors of King Phillip's raids were still fresh in his mind.

"Don't worry about it," was all she said.

"All right. I'll be back soon." He left her room and closed the door behind him slowly, and kept the same pace to Mr. Caïn's stall. If he was late, so be it.