Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (полная версия книги .TXT) 📗

"I cannot let you suffer. I cannot let this go on."

"Hal!" His father's voice was suddenly powerful again. "There is no more suffering. I have passed that point. They cannot hurt me now, except through you."

"What can I do to ease you? Tell me, what can I do?" Hal pleaded.

"There is only one thing you can do now. Let me take with me the knowledge of your strength and your fortitude. If you fail me now, it will all have been in vain."

Hal bit into the knuckles of his own clenched fist, drawing blood in the vain attempt to stifle his sobs. His father's voice came again.

"Daniel, are you there?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Help him. Help my son to be a man." "I give you my promise, Captain."

Hal raised his head, and his voice was stronger. "I do not need anybody to help me. I will keep my faith with you, Father. I will not betray your trust."

"Farewell, Hal." Sir Francis's voice began to fade, as though he were falling into an infinite pit. "You are my blood and my promise of eternal life. Goodbye, my life."

The following morning when they carried Sir Francis up from the dungeon Hop and Doctor AT Soar walked on either side of the litter. They were both worried men, for there was no sign of life in the broken figure that lay between them. Even when Hal defied Barnard's whip, and called down to him from the walls, Sir Francis did not raise his head. They took him down the stairs to where Slow John already waited, but within a few minutes all three came out into the sunlight, Soar, Hop and Slow John, and stood talking quietly for a short while. Then they walked together across to the Governor's suite and mounted the stairs.

Van de Velde was standing by the stained-glass window, peering out at the shipping that lay anchored off the foreshore. Late the previous evening, another Company galleon had come into Table Bay and he was expecting the ship's captain to call upon him to pay his respects and to present an order for provisions and stores. Van de Velde turned impatiently from the window to face the three men as they filed into his chamber.

"Ja, Hop?" He looked at his favourite victim. "You have remembered my orders, for once, hey? You have brought the state executioner to speak to me." He turned to Slow John. "So, has the pirate told you where he has hidden the treasure? Come on, fellow, speak up."

Slow John's expression did not change as he said softly, "I have worked carefully not to damage the respondent beyond usefulness. But I am nearing the end. Soon he will no longer hear my voice, nor be sensible to any further persuasion."

"You have failed?" van de Velde's voice trembled with anger.

"No, not yet," said Slow John. "He is strong. I would never have believed how strong. But there is still the rack. I do not believe that he will be able to withstand the rack. No man can weather the rack."

"You have not used it yet?" van de Velde demanded. "Why not?"

"To me it is the last resort. Once they have been racked, there is nothing left. It is the end."

"Will it work with this one?" van de Velde wanted to know. "What happens if he still resists?"

"Then there is only the scaffold and the gibbet," said Slow John.

Slowly van de Velde turned to Doctor Soar. "What is your opinion, doctor?"

"Your excellency, if you require an execution then it should be carried out very soon after the man is racked." "How soon? "van de Velde demanded.

"Today. Before nightfall. After racking, he will not last the night."

Van de Velde turned back to Slow John. "You have disappointed me.

I am displeased." Slow John did not seem to hear the rebuke. His eyes did not even flicker as he stared back at van de Velde. "However, we must do what we can to make the best of this whole sorry business. I will order the execution for three o'clock this afternoon. In the meantime you are to go back and place the pirate on the rack."

"I understand, your excellency," said Slow John.

"You have failed me once. Do not do so again. He must be alive when he goes to the scaffold." Van de Velde turned to the clerk. "Hop, send messengers through the town. I am declaring the rest of today to be a holiday throughout the colony, except for the work on the castle walls, of course. Francis Courtney will be executed at three o'clock this afternoon. Every burgher in the colony must be there. I want all to see how we deal with a pirate. Oh, and by the way, make certain that Mevrouw van de Velde is informed. She will be very angry if she misses the sport." two o'clock they brought Sir Francis Courtney on a litter from the cell below the A-Aarmoury. They had not bothered to cover his naked body. Even from high up on the south wall of the castle, and with his vision blurred by his tears, Hal could see that his father's body had been grotesquely deformed by the rack. Every one of the great joints in his limbs and at his shoulders and pelvis were dislocated, swollen and bruised purple black.

An execution detail of green-jackets was drawn up in the courtyard. Led by an officer with a drawn sword, they fell in around the litter. Twenty men marched in front, and twenty followed behind, their muskets at the slope. The tap-tap tap-tap of the death drum set the pace. The procession snaked through the castle gates, out onto the Parade.

Daniel placed his arm around Hal's shoulder, as the boy watched, white-faced and shivering, in the icy wind. Hal made no move to pull away from him. Those seamen who had coverings for their heads removed them, unwinding the filthy rags and standing grim and silent as the bier passed beneath them.