“Aye, and you mine.” He rolled off his back and lay atop her, a cracked smile on his face. “The boy who was a woman, and the woman who swallowed the whale.”
Thus, many a happy hour they spent dreaming and plotting as the calendar turned awhile Mr. Chard chewed on how to get the ambergris—and himself—off the isle. Day by day he attended to the horizon, desperate for sail, and nights he took to building blazing fires on the shore lest any passing vessel creep by unnoticing. Admiral Somers had left behind a small fishing boat when the Patience and Deliverance departed, and Chard toyed with the notion of crafting a mast and cloth to sail the six hundred miles to Jamestown, but he dared not risk the treasure to the mercies of the Atlantic, not alone at least, and there was no one with whom he wished to share the voyage or the spoils. His speech grew thick with curses and in his temper, he lashed out to man and beast and God at the cruelty of fate and circumstance. He would feign to kick old Crab when he could, tho dared not chance a bite in the ankle. To Mr. Carter he was most uncivil, tho his cruelty was benign against his holy shield. Chard saved his most bitter rancor for the two lovebirds who had come to exclude him from their intimacies. For Waters, nothing but sneering disdain as Cain looking upon Abel, and for Jane, most deep contempt, her mere presence an itch, a burning coal in his breeches. Vats of palm wine he brewed and drank alone, and many a morning, he would be found muttering to himself to untangle a riddle that plagued his addled brain. Too late he realized he had given up one prize to speculate upon another.
On Michaelmas, being a day to celebrate the harvest and eat the fatted goose, they proposed to Chard an excursion to Smith Island, so it was named, to find fit repast for their evening supper, a turkle perhaps, or a few cahows. The isle was also the spot whereon Mr. Carter had once found an old Spanish gold coin, and Chard accepted at once on the chance that more might be buried there. Off they set in the little fishing boat, Chard and Waters at the oars, Jane turned in the bow to face them, her collar loosed, the day fine and the sea calm. Their excursion reminded her of happier times when the three had been genuine friends. Beneath the bright sun, Waters broached the subject that was torturing them all. “Do you ever think, Mr. Chard, had I not happed upon the ambergris that our present enmity may have been avoided? For it seems the promise of riches, sir, hath caused a great change unto you.”
At once Chard drew in his oar and stopped rowing, obliging Waters to do the same lest they commence traveling in circles. The little boat bobbed on the swell as Chard fixed his glare upon him. “You? You happed upon the whale? ’Twas I what saw it first.”
“Come now, Edward, let us be friends,” Waters implored. “We have good news to share this morn—”
“You cannot say so. I found the amber grease, and by rights, I own the whale’s share of the whale.”
“Jane and I, we have decided, we shall be wed—”
“Mine!” he shouted. “And what’s this, wed? You cannot have her, Robert, nor the money either. I found her out first, just as I discovered the treasure.”
“Mr. Chard, please,” Jane said. “We are in love.”
“Love, is it? Love? You are mine, too, Jane Long, and I’m ne’er done with you. How dare you lay claim to what is mine, girl or amber grease.” With the butt end of the oar, he poked Waters in the ribs.
“Leave off,” Waters shouted. He fingered the knife belted at his hip. “Once more, and I’ll cut your t’roat.”
Leaning forward in the boat, Jane set it rocking upon the waves. “Good sirs, I entreat you.”
“Entreat me not, thou jot. You are no better than a thief and a whore, you scarescrow.” He spat in the ocean. “He may have you, all I care, but that fortune is rightly mine, as I saw it first, damn you.”