The boats made their sweeps continuously through the morning, back and forth across the area, up and down, like waterbugs doing a dance. At intervals one would jerk out of line and halt, and the other boatmen would rest on their oars while the man on the hooked boat dove. Time and again a dejected black face, glistening damply, popped back to the surface. A log floating submerged. A huge mass of seaweed. A hump in the ocean floor. And the search went on.

  Shortly after noon they all hauled their grapples aboard and headed for the Edisto Packet and the midday meal. One, in a bigger hurry than the rest, didn’t wait to take in the bar. He simply swung out of line and rowed for the ship as fast as he could. Halfway there his boat jerked to a halt, the ropes at the stern taut. The other boatmen passed him, laughing and jeering, as he went over the side. Before they made it to the ship he was back on the surface, whooping and shouting.

  Michael ran back to where the captain, a big-nosed, broad-faced man named Grooms, peered through a spyglass. “What’s the matter out there? Is it a shark?”

  “Not from the way he’s grinning,” the captain said.

  The boatman in the water waved both hands over his head. “The boat! I hooked on the boat!”

  Michael leaned against the rail weakly while the ship exploded into activity around him. Thank God. He’d almost begun to—No, he’d never doubted, not really. And that boatman. He’d double his wages for a bonus. Sure and he deserved it.

  The capstan creaked as the anchor was hauled in, and enough sails shook loose to move the hundred yards to the wreck. When the anchor went back down, right by the snagged boat, and the boatmen swarmed aboard, it was as if they’d found a shipload of gold, not rice. They laughed and slapped one another on the back, and the ship’s crew raised three cheers. One of them even started a tune on a tin whistle.

  Michael passed among them while the meal was being given out. “Eat light,” he warned. “Remember you’re diving.”

  The warning was hardly necessary. The same excitement that made him pick at his food was on the rest as well. More than one half-filled plate sat on the deck when the first diver splashed into the water.

  On the deck was a flurry, too. Hatch covers were swung off, braced yards rigged as booms to lower nets over the side. The first of the heavy rope nets sank beneath the surface, and everyone held their breath. Divers surfaced and waved, and the first load, four barrels, was hauled up and swung on board.

  Michael hurried forward with a prybar as one of the tierces was rolled clear of the net. Taking a deep breath he forced open the end of the barrel. With a grin he plunged his hand into the rice. “Dry as bone,” he announced, and another cheer went up. “Come on, now. Get this closed up and below. There’s plenty more to come on board. Move along, now.”

  The nets began swinging up with regularity, each time bringing three, four, or even five barrels. The first edge of excitement was gone, now, and everything was workmanlike. The barrels were swayed directly into the hold. The boatmen dove again.

  One of the nets swung in with a single huge hogshead. A seaman puzzled out the brands on the barrelhead. “It’s tobacco.”

  “Check it. If it’s dry, put it below. If not, empty it over the side.”

  The stream continued. More rice. Another hogshead of tobacco. Two, almost as big and even heavier, of turpentine. Some small barrels of pitch. More rice.

  By the rail Michael noticed two barrels set aside. “What’s the matter with them?”

  “Too light,” was the answer. “Must have got water in somehow.”

  Lighter? Rice didn’t get lighter when it was wet. It swelled, got heavier. Michael picked up the prybar.

  There was a brand on the barrelhead, CPRI. A queer excitement came over him. It couldn’t be. Cranwell wouldn’t have sold if—Seamen crowded around as he hurriedly pried it open. The barrel was filled to the top with flat, coppery two-inch squares. Indigo.

  The stuff rich dyes were made from was the most expensive cargo shipped from the Americas. From any British colony.

  Michael picked up one of the cakes and broke it. The grain was tight, the color brilliant. And the cake felt light in the hand. That was good. He ground the two pieces together to make a small pile on the deck. Someone ran to get a lit splinter from the galley When the flame touched the piled powder, it flared and burned brightly, leaving almost no ash. The brand didn’t lie. It was copper indigo, the best. At twenty-five shillings currency to the pound, three shillings sixpence sterling, and three hundred fifty pounds in a cask—

  “Are there any more below?” he asked finally.

  “Yes, sir,” one of the divers answered. He was staring at the indigo almost reverently. “They spilled all over the bottom like they was deck cargo. You can tell they too light for rice, even under the water.”

  “How many?”

  “Fifty, maybe sixty, maybe more.”

  Michael closed his eyes. Fifty, sixty, maybe more. Here he was sweating over the bringing up of the rice, and all the while, right there, was enough indigo to make the whole of the rice less than pocket change. He could forget the rice and the rest and still be a rich man.

  “All right,” he said firmly. “We’ll get the rice and tobacco and such later. Bring up the light barrels first.”

  His excitement communicated itself to the others. The divers dove as if they were being paid for speed; the sailors handled each barrel as if it were their own. The number of casks with the CPRI brand mounted. Thirty, forty, fifty. And still more came.

  Suddenly Michael realized he hadn’t seen Daniel for some time. He wasn’t with the men resting on the rail. Heads popped up in the water and went below, more heads, and still no Daniel.

  “Have you seen Daniel?” he called down. “Daniel! Have you seen him.”

  A diver pointed. “He be over toward the bow last I see.”

  “How long?”

  The diver shrugged.

  With a curse Michael kicked off his shoes and mounted the rail. He took a deep breath as he dove, and clove the water cleanly. He stroked and kicked deeper in the gray-green murk, deeper, deeper. There was something in front of him. He grabbed it, felt along it. A spar, the bowsprit. Daniel must be close by, but where?

  He circled out from the bow. Little light filtered down that far, and bottom mud seemed suspended in the water, drifting in tendrils. Already his chest was feeling tight. Not much time left.

  There. A shape off to the right. Something that moved with the water, but more solid than the clouds of mud. He swam toward it. The shape became clearer. A man, Daniel. Unconscious. One of the huge hogsheads, tobacco or turpentine, had slid over to catch his foot against two of the small casks.

  Michael pushed at the small ones. They wouldn’t move. They were wedged too tightly against the bottom. It’d have to be the big one. A ton, it would weigh, or more. On land he’d have had no hope. Even here, where the water bore a part of it—He braced his feet against a small barrel, his back against the large one, and shoved with all his might. Nothing moved. He shoved harder. His chest burned with need for air. There was a tightening band round his throat. Move, damn it. Move.

  Suddenly the hogshead jerked. An inch. Another. With incredible slowness it tilted over, fell away, raising a spreading cloud of silt. Daniel began drifting away. Michael’s chest heaved. The body demanded he breathe, and only his will kept the mouth shut.

  He grabbed at Daniel, caught a handful of shirt. With his feet he pushed off for the surface. The burning was not only in his chest, now. Every limb felt like a flame. His eyes were closed, and he worked on the memory of what air was like. The murk of the water drifted into his brain. He knew he was fading. Stroke, you Black Irish bastard, he screamed at himself. Stroke, damn you. The free arm wasn’t working as it should. It pawed at the water. The fingers weren’t even cupped. Oh, hell. It was a damned good try, anyway. He opened his mouth and filled it with fresh sea air.

  He opened his eyes and stared around the ship, the sky, the faces peering anxiously down. Divers joined him in the water, towing both him and Daniel to the ship. They tried to lift him up first, but he wouldn’t go till they’d taken Daniel.

  “He’s dead,” they told him on deck.

  “Get him over a barrel,” he said, gasping still. “The sea took one from me, but I’ll take this one back.”

  They looked at him and at one another as if he were crazy, but they brought a barrel and draped Daniel over it. They rolled him back and forth assiduously, kneading his back, chafing his limbs. Michael’s eyes fixed any who shirked.

  Suddenly Daniel shook, and then coughed. In a long retch he spewed up a gallon of water, then hung limply. He looked slowly around the circle of men, stopping at Michael’s dripping form. “You.”

  Michael shrugged. “Somebody had to stop you from dozing off down there.” Daniel grinned weakly, and Michael went on as an idea grew. “I think I ought to have you where I can keep an eye on you. How’d you like to be patroon at a plantation, in charge of all the boats and barges and such?”

  “I never think of it before,” Daniel said simply.

  “Well, you think of it now. And I won’t take no for an answer.” He got to his feet and stared at the men standing around them. Every seaman and diver was in the circle. “What are you all doing? The indigo’s dissolving down there. The water’s getting to the rice. Get to work, all of you.”

  When the Edisto Packet sailed into Charlestown harbor the story was already known. A piraqua had happened by the first afternoon of salvage, and a planter’s barge the next morning. To tell anyone who might not have heard, all the boatmen except Daniel rowed ashore as soon as they passed the first wharves. Even so, trouble didn’t come until they were half unloaded.

  Peter Cranwell came trotting his way down the wharf like a pig in a black suit, followed by two men with constable’s staves. He leveled a finger dramatically at the ship. “That’s my cargo.”

  Michael took a deep breath. “I’ve been expecting you to try this, Cranwell. You know full well I bought the salvage.”

  One of the constables made his way forward, hat in hand. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Fallon, but Mr. Cranwell claims, that is, he says—”

  “Don’t be so touchy,” Cranwell snapped. “He’s not a gentleman.”

  The constable shifted uneasily. To his mind this Fallon looked more like a gentleman than Cranwell. “Ah, yes, sir. Well, Mr. Cranwell, he says that you, sir, by way of a joke, like, offered to buy the cargo of his boat what was sunk for a hundred pounds. Then he, also by way of a joke, and you both knowing it, accepted.”

  “Exactly,” Cranwell broke in. “Who ever heard of selling a cargo like this for a hundred pounds?”

  “I have, for one,” John Rutledge said, “and there were others there, too.” He leaned lazily on his walking stick. “I heard you were coming in today, Mr. Fallon. Tolerable good luck with your fishing, I see.”

  “Tolerable, Mr. Rutledge.”

  The two constables looked from Cranwell to Rutledge to Fallon to each other.

  “Now listen—” Cranwell began.

  “Ah, Mr. Cranwell,” Rutledge said. “I remember you so well. From Dillon’s Tavern, for instance. Others remember you, too. Like young Middleton. Of course you remember us all, don’t you? And now, if this little joke of yours is over, perhaps we could let these constables go.”

  “I—”

  “It is a joke, isn’t it? Because if it isn’t, I believe Mr. Fallon could bring an action for defamation of character. I’d be happy to represent him.”

  Cranwell’s mouth twitched twice before he spoke. “I, I suppose it was a joke.”

  Rutledge smiled. “Good. In that case I expect you’ll be going, Mr. Cranwell. And of course you two gentlemen can go as well. If there’s a fine I’m certain he’ll pay it without question. He’s a man who doesn’t mind paying for his jokes.”

  With a strangled grunt Cranwell scurried away, the two constables hard in his wake.

  “Do you think they’ll fine him?” Michael asked.

  “I doubt it, but he’ll fret at it, till he comes down with a mania. It’s no more than he deserves.”

  “I must thank you, Mr. Rutledge. For the second time you arrived in the nick.”

  “I know Cranwell.” He looked at Michael a moment, then gestured to the ship. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are your plans now?”

  “I’ve given thought to becoming a planter,” Michael replied, and watched for a reaction.

  Rutledge’s was to offer his hand. “I’m delighted, sir. May I be the first to drink to that—a bowl of sangaree at Dillon’s, or perhaps a bottle of Madeira?”

  “You may, sir. Captain Grooms, Mr. Jepson will help with the rest of the unloading. If you’ll lead on, Mr. Rutledge.”

  “A planter!” Mr. Carver said. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Why not put the profits into the rice market?”

  Michael set his glass on the mantel and turned from the study fire. “Sir, I gave some thought to that, but it’s as a planter I’ll begin. When I can afford to ship my own crop in my own bottoms, then I’ll expand into trade.”

  “That’s the reverse of what most do. It’s a big undertaking, this planting. To find a good piece of land—”

  Michael strode to the cabinet and in a minute had Carver’s map of the province on the desk. “Here, on the Santee. Not far from the land you purchased. Two thousand acres for a good price, with enough cypress swamp to put eight hundred acres in rice. I’ll start with two hundred for next season.”

  Carver was caught up. “Next season! Well, perhaps you can. But for two hundred acres you’ll need, oh, seventy prime slaves. That’ll be a vast expense.”

  “Yes. The slaves.” Michael straightened and breathed heavily. “There are some who’d think me strange for it, but I intend to hold them as bound men. After eight years service I’ll give them their freedom, same as you gave me mine.”

  “That will be strange,” Carver said slowly. “If you’ve objection to owning slaves, Michael, perhaps you should consider indigo. You don’t need nearly so many as for rice.”

  “Truth to tell, sir, indigo is too big a gamble.”

  “A gamble? Indigo? The price goes higher every year. There’s never been a firmer market for anything.”

  “So long as we’ve the bounty. Two more years at sixpence a pound, then down to fourpence a pound for seven more years. After that, nothing. And what do you think the market’ll be with no bounty?”

  “There’ll be a bounty,” the merchant said. “The whole purpose of it is to keep hard money from leaving English hands for French and Spanish indigo. They’ll never drop it.”

  “I’ll gamble on my skill with cards, sir, or the speed of a horse, but never on what fools in a government will do.”

  Carver laughed. “Well, Michael Fallon, planter, what now?”

  “For me it’s back to my room to freshen up, then off to see the owner of the Santee property.”

  In his room, though, he found Elizabeth sitting on his bed, hands primly folded. They didn’t stay that way. She rushed to him and threw her arms around him. When he could finish kissing her he pushed her back.

  “Girl, are you insane? What if someone saw you coming here? Or sees you going?”

  “Bother! I had to see you.” She studied at twisting a button off his waistcoat. “Ever since you went off on that silly boat I haven’t had a moment alone with you.” He pulled her close again, and she wet her lips for the expected kiss.

  Instead he just looked down at her tenderly. “You little goose. You don’t even know what that silly boat means to us, do you? It means I’m becoming a planter. In a year I’ll be asking for your hand. We’ll sneak behind the bushes no longer. I see it surprised you it can come so soon.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t surprised, she was shocked. Marriage? To a bond servant? Of course, he wasn’t bound anymore; still … . But a planter, with his dashing good looks, his hands that brought ecstasy? “Darling.” She leaned closer for a kiss.

  “My puppet, I can spend the afternoon here kissing you, or I can go and meet the man who’s going to sell me my land. You choose.”

  With a sigh she straightened. Lord, but even that devilish grin of his made her—No. “You go.” She put a quick kiss on his chin. “For luck. Now go.”

  She watched him down the carriage path from the window. What a fine figure of a man. If his plans for a plantation worked out—If only they did.

  12

  Christopher stopped his horse by the tall, stone gateposts with their heavy gates. TIR ALAINN, a brass plate on one post said. Beautiful Land. Of course Fallon would name the place in the old tongue. He wondered if anything about him was changed in a year.

  The way up to the house, on top of a hill that sloped down to the river, was lined with new-set oaks a dozen feet high. Oaks, now. They took a long time to grow. Planting for generations to come, it was called.

  Beyond the house was Michael on horseback, down on the dikes by the river. As he rode closer the smell of the rice blossoms drifted to him like the delicate scent of a woman’s perfume. In the fields slaves waded among the flowers, picking something out of the water and stuffing it into sacks.

  “What are they doing, Michael?”

  A happy smile lit Michael’s face. “Christopher! God, and it’s good to see you. Don’t you know? Crayfish. Crayfish by the hundreds. They’ll strip a field clean, do you let them. This is one task the hands enjoy, though. They’ll boil the creatures up tonight for supper. It’s a tasty dish, the way Esther cooks it. You’ll see.”

  “Lord, but haven’t you turned into the planter for sure, bossing your blacks and eating crayfish?”

  “Away with you. Come up to the house, we’ll share a cool drink and tell each other lies.”