Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier

Author:Daphne Du Maurier [Maurier, Daphne du]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781402217104
Amazon: 1402217102
Publisher: Virago
Published: 1962-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIV

THERE WERE TWO SHIPS in mid-channel, sailing in company about three miles distant from one another, and the leading ship had a curious rakish air about her, with her slanting masts and her coloured paintwork, as though she were leading the sober merchantman that followed her to uncharted waters beyond the far horizon.

The summer gale that had thrashed the sea for twenty-four hours without ceasing had now blown itself out, and the sky was hard and blue without a single cloud. The swell too had died away, leaving the sea quiet and curiously still, so that the two ships, with only the breath of a northerly breeze to drive them, stayed almost motionless in the channel, their sails hanging uselessly upon the yards. A smell of cooking came from the galley of the Merry Fortune, the warm brown smell of roasting chicken, and the fragrance of it crept into the open port-hole of the cabin, mingling with the fresh salt air and the warm sun. Dona opened her eyes, and she became aware for the first time that the ship was no longer pitching and tossing in the trough of the Atlantic swell, the sickness that had overtaken her was gone, and above all she was hungry, hungrier than she had been in her life. She yawned, stretching her arms above her head, smiling to herself because she was no longer sea-sick, and then she swore softly, using one of Harry's more stable-sounding oaths, for she remembered that by being sea-sick she had forfeited her wager. She put her hands up to her ears, fingering her ruby ear-rings reluctantly, and as she did so she realised with full consciousness that she was stark naked under the blanket, and there was no trace of her clothes upon the cabin floor.

It seemed eternity since she had stumbled down the companion-way in the dark, drenched, and exhausted, and sick, and flinging off her shirt and her breeches, and those lumping blistering shoes, had crept into the warmth of those comforting blankets, longing only for stillness and for sleep.

Someone must have come into the cabin while she was sleeping, for the port-hole was wide open that had been closed before against the weather, her clothes had been taken away, and in their place was a ewer of boiling water and a towel.

She climbed from the spacious bunk where she had lain for a day and a night, thinking, as she stood naked upon the floor of the cabin and washed, that whoever had been master of the Merry Fortune believed in comfort before vigilance. Glancing out of the port-hole as she parted her hair she saw away on the starboard bow the spars of La Mouette, gleaming scarlet in the sun. Once more the smell of chicken came to her nostrils, and then, hearing the sound of footsteps on the deck outside, she climbed back into her berth, dragging the blanket to her chin.

"Are you awake yet?" called the Frenchman. She bade him

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