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GLORIANA

Before shipping with the Gloriana, Roger had assuood condition In fact, compared to most of the obviously malnourished and wizened specimens of humanity who constituted the rest of the crew, he considered himself well endowed, indeed It took precisely fourteen hours--the length of one day’s work--to disabuse hiained for, and soreropes was fah he hadn’t done it for soue that sprang as much from the constant chill of damp clothes as froo hold, because it warh he knew the warmth would be succeeded by a fine, constant shiver as soon as he eed on deck, where the wind could resuhened and scraped by wet hemp were painful, but expected; by the end of his first day, his palers cracked and bled at the joints, scraped raw But the gnawing ache of hunger had been soht it possible to be as hungry as he was

The knobbled lu beside him--one Duff by name--was si, pointed nose that quested, ferret-like, froed jacket was blue at the tip and dripped regularly as a stalactite, but the pale eyes were sharp and theteeth the color of the water in the Firth

"Take hairt, ave him a companionable elbow in the ribs and disappeared nimbly down a hatchway, from whose cavernous recesses echoed blasphe of the cargo net, heartened indeed at the prospect of supper

The after hold had already been half filled The water casks were loaded; tier upon tier of wooden hogsheads, squatting in the shadowy gloo aped empty, and a constant procession of loaders and quay up such a heap of boxes and barrels, rolls and bundles, that it seemed inconceivable that the mass should ever be condensed sufficiently to fit within the ship

It took two days to finish the loading: barrels of salt, bolts of cloth, huge crates of irons because of their weight It was here that Roger’s size proved of benefit At the end of a rope belayed round the capstan, he leaned back against the weight of a crate suspended at the other end and, h that the two uide it into place in the increasingly crowded hold

The passengers carants, burdened with bags, bundles, caged chickens, and children These were the cargo of the steerage--a space created by erection of a bulk-head across the forward hold--and as profitable in their way as the harder goods aft

"Bonds over the incomers with a practiced eye "Worth fifteen pund each on the hoof in the plantations, weans three or four Bairns at the teat go free wi’ theirnoise like an ancientthe side rail as he spat He shook his head as he looked the shuffling line over

"Happen some can pay their way, but no many in this lot They’ll have had a job to coe"

"The Captain doesn’t feed thehed and spat "For a price" He grinned at Roger, wiped his plank "Go and lend a hand, laddie We wouldna want the Captain’s profit to be fallin’ intae the water, noould we?"

Surprised by the padded feel of a little girl as he swung her aboard, Roger looked closer and saw that the stout build ofseveral layers of clothes; all they owned in the world, apparently, beyond small bundles of personal possessions, boxes of food put by for the journey--and the scrawny children for whose sake they took this desperate step

Roger squatted, s to his mother’s skirts He was no more than two, still in smocks, with a riot of soft blond curls, his fat littlearound hi out a hand in invitation It was no longer an effort to control his accent; his usual clipped Oxbridge had elided to the gentler Highland speech hich he had grown up, and he used it noithout conscious thought "Your Mam can’t be pickin’ ye up now; you colowered at hiers away froer carried the little boy across the deck, the wo him silently She looked up at him as he handed her down the ladder, her eyes fixed on his; her face disappeared in the darkness like a white rock dropped doell, and he turned aith a feeling of unease, as though he had abandoned so

As he turned back to his work, he saw a young woirl called "bonny"--not beautiful, but lively and nicelyabout her that took the eye

Perhaps it was only her posture; straight as a lily ste backs around her Or her face, which showed apprehension and uncertainty, but had still about it the brightness of curiosity A darer, that one, he thought, and his heart--oppressed by so ht of her

She hesitated at sight of the ship and the crowd around it A tall fair-haired young man ith her, a baby in his arlanced up at hi of athat ht have been envy