Surely if Binion had ordered men into the rigging to look for her, he would have sent only one? That implied that the three men were on a mission to adjust the sails, in which case she should hold still in hopes of slipping past later while they were busy with their task. But trimming the sails usually required a larger crew than three. Perhaps they had been sent in a group to seek out, leap upon, and overpower any reluctant airmen. In which case she should move now, move as quickly as possible, in hopes of reaching the cabin before they could spot her and sound the alarm.
Panicked, indecisive, she looked left and right, but the smooth round hull offered no hiding place. But she did see one thing that offered a tiny hope: no men were climbing the starboard mast, at least none that she could see as yet.
Quickly Arabella moved to the left, pressing herself against the hull as best she could, hoping to hide herself behind the keel. At this point it rose nearly a foot and a half from the hull, though it met the hull in a curve that left less than a foot to conceal her body.
She could not tell from here, as she trembled with her cheek pressed against the cold, wet wood, whether or not she had managed to hide herself completely. But she had to move, somehow—to put as much distance behind herself as possible before she was noticed.
Gingerly, with tiny touches of finger-and toe-tips, she began to edge herself toward the stern. Making forward progress without pushing her body away from the hull and into plain sight seemed nearly impossible, but soon she worked out a technique where, pulling with the flat of her palm against the rain-wet surface of the hull, she could move—slowly—without exposing herself.
At least she hoped she was not exposing herself. Lacking eyes in her elbows and hips, she could not be sure. But no shouts of discovery came to her ears.
Grimly, hauling herself along foot by foot, she moved some twenty or thirty feet under cover of the keel before poking her head up again. The men on the larboard mast seemed engaged in some adjustment of the rigging, their hair and clothing whipped by the storm; the starboard mast was still unpeopled.
Judging by the angle of the masts, she had barely made any forward progress.
She peered over the keel at the larboard mast. Were the airmen there sufficiently occupied that they might not notice one small figure moving along the keel?
Perhaps. They were so far away that it was difficult to be sure. But, by the same token, she was so far from them that they might not see her. And the storm, still growing in intensity, might serve to hide her from their view.
She wiped her streaming eyes and peered down the length of the ship to where the rudder loomed from the hull. It seemed a very long distance to creep at her current pace, but it could in fact be no farther than the length of the upper deck.
A distance she had covered in one leap on many occasions, during gunnery practice and the battle with the French.
Keeping one eye on the larboard mast, she slowly edged out onto the keel … now fully visible to the topmen, though they did not seem to notice.
She swallowed, drew up her knees to her chest, took a deep breath, gripped the keel hard with her heels, and pushed off hard.
Arabella’s heart pounded as the keel’s copper surface flew by just inches below her chin. Cold rain battered like hail at her face and shoulders.
A flash of lightning limned the rudder ahead, drawing rapidly closer.
Too rapidly.
She reached out her hands to slow herself.
And then a projecting flap of copper caught her hand! Pain tore across her palm and stabbed up her arm as she tumbled away, stifling a cry of pain and alarm. The world spun around her—hull and keel and masts and black, roiling clouds tumbling crazily past in rapid succession. Thunder boomed, disorienting her still further.
Arabella flailed in the air, straining her blood-smeared fingers toward the keel as it flashed past again and again. The first time she missed. The second time she brushed it with her fingers, serving only to send herself tumbling in a different direction. Disoriented, she missed the keel again on its next pass, and again.
On the next pass, stretch though she might, the keel flew by beyond her fingers’ reach.
And again.
Panic flooded her throat. The ship was receding from her, farther and farther on each rotation. Thunder and lightning disoriented her still further.
She stretched out a leg, reaching with her toes, but the keel only smacked her foot, adding a nauseating spin to her existing tumble.
And then something slammed into the back of her head.
Stunned by the pain though she was, she quickly groped behind herself for the offending object. One hand found rough, wet wood and gripped it with panicked strength.
With a painful wrench of her shoulder, her dizzying tumble slowed; a moment later the wood struck her across the hips. She folded herself across it, clinging like a desperate monkey.
Her head still spun, though her body’s rotation had stilled. Her right hand throbbed with pain. She tasted blood.
She was clinging to the rudder, a massive plank of khoresh-wood which creaked ponderously in her arms, swaying slowly from the impact.
Looking around, she saw that both masts were bare of people. Had they completed their task and returned to the deck without seeing her? Or were the mutineers rushing toward her even now?
She wiped her eyes, shook her head to clear it, and began clambering up the rudder.