Mitt cast his eyes to the elegant ceiling. The current began off Hoe Point, and Hoe Point came after Little Flate. I thought everyone knew that, he thought. Anyway, what’s the fuss about? You can go right out to sea and get out of it again.
But Wind’s Road was simply a pleasure boat. Ynen had never been out of sight of land in her. And he had always had sailors with him before who knew the coast. “I think perhaps you’d better fetch me the chart,” he said to Hildy. “It’s in the rack over the port bunk.”
“I think I’d better, too,” said Hildy, and she set off.
Whoops! thought Mitt, as he heard her coming. The time had come for him to act. He snatched up Hobin’s gun and cocked it as he scrambled off the bunk. Then he grabbed open the door and whirled through it, just as Hildy was trying to come in.
They collided heavily. Hildy was slightly taller than Mitt and weighed a great deal more. But Mitt was moving twice as fast. Hildy crashed over backward with a shriek. Mitt was thrown against the cabin. The gun went off with a bark and a jerk and all but kicked itself out of Mitt’s hand. It was like being hit over the wrist with a hammer. The shot, in a spatter of splinters, plowed across the deck and into the sea. The well filled with sharp-smelling smoke.
“Ye gods!” wailed Hildy. She thought her back was broken.
Mitt choked for breath against the cabin door and peered resentfully through the smoke at the gun. He thought Hobin might have warned him that it kicked like that. Then, as the smoke cleared, he saw Ynen in front of him, hanging on to the tiller and the rope from the mainsail, very white in the face, and staring at the long splintered groove in Wind’s Road’s beautiful planking. A right ninny, Mitt thought. Cares more about his boat being damaged than he does about his brother—sister, I mean. Hildy was painfully up on one elbow, glaring at Mitt. Mitt looked at both of them with the utmost contempt. They both had such a smooth look, with their skin well filled and their hair thick and dark and healthy. He could see neither had gone hungry in their lives. What aroused his dislike most—though he did not realize it—was that Hildy and Ynen both inherited their looks from their father. Mitt looked at Ynen and saw a gentle version of Hadd’s nose and at Hildy and saw the narrow, pale face of both Navis and Harchad, and though he did not recognize either, he detested them both on sight. And since his opinion of females was low, anyway, he encountered Hildy’s glare and thought: She makes me sick—worse than her brother!
It was not surprising that they felt much the same about Mitt. They stared at Mitt’s young-old face and his lank, dull-colored hair. They saw his bony hand was gripping a gun that looked like a collector’s piece, that his pea jacket was ragged, and that green mud was peeling from his long, skinny legs. They knew he must be riffraff from the waterfront. They suspected he was a thief, too. They thought he was disgusting.
“Well, we know what the soldiers were after. And where all the mud came from,” said Hildy.
“Are you badly hurt?” Ynen asked her. He felt very helpless. He dared not let go of the tiller to help Hildy, nor did he dare turn straight round and head back to Holand, much as he wanted to, for fear this disgusting stowaway loosed off with his gun again.
“No. I’m all right,” said Hildy, and struggled to her feet. “He missed me, of course.”
“I was not aiming to hit you,” Mitt said with great scorn. “You ran into me like a whole herd of cows. You want to look out. This is a hasty kind of gun.”
“I like that!” said Hildy.
“If it’s that hasty, why don’t you put it away?” Ynen suggested.
Mitt ignored him. He looked up at the sail and the streaming flag at the masthead. It was a fair wind for the North, all right. The land was low blue hummocks to his right. It took Mitt only one glance to spot Hoe Point nearly a mile astern. The hump Ynen had taken for Hoe Point was Canderack Head. Mitt was impressed. It was still an hour off sundown, too. He could not help grinning.
“Well, well,” he said. “A good fast boat you got here. All set for the North, aren’t we?”
Ynen’s face went rather whiter as he grasped what the stowaway might be planning. “We’re not going to take you North,” he said. “If that’s what’s in your mind.”
“Not got much choice, have you?” said Mitt. He pretended to rub the gun on his sleeve. He did not really rub it, because he was very much afraid it would go off again. “I’ve got this gun, haven’t I?”
“You can shoot me if you want,” said Ynen. “But I’m not taking you North.” He wondered if it would hurt very much and thought that it probably would. He could only hope he would die quickly.
“Ynen, don’t be an idiot!” said Hildy.
“He thinks I wouldn’t dare,” said Mitt. “Well, I would. Because I happen to be a desperate man.” That sounded good. And it had the advantage of being true. Mitt began to enjoy himself. “If you won’t take me North,” he said, “I wouldn’t kill you. I’d just put a bullet in your leg. Maybe both legs.” He was pleased to see Hildy glaring at him. “Then in her,” he said. “And then it would be rather a pleasure to knock this boat about a bit—scrape off the pretty paint, carve silly pictures in the decking, and so on.”
As Mitt had hoped it would, this threat truly upset Ynen. “You dare touch my boat, you guttersnipe!”
“He doesn’t know any better,” said Hildy.
“I thought that would worry you,” Mitt said in high glee. “All you’ve got to do to stop me is carry on as you are. Just keep sailing North.”
Ynen and Hildy exchanged a miserable look. They seemed to have gone from perfect happiness to a nightmare in a matter of seconds. Hildy wondered what had possessed her to lead Ynen into this. She had known there were revolutionaries at large. They should have stayed in the Palace. Ynen was thinking mostly of that current and how he could persuade the boy that Wind’s Road simply could not take him all the way North.
“Look here,” Ynen said, trying to sound fair and reasonable. “We can’t go North. We have to be back in Holand tonight or people will worry. What do you say to our landing you somewhere on the way back? How about—” Ynen looked over at the land and could not help feeling extremely uneasy about the shape of it. “Hoe Point?” he said doubtfully.
Mitt gave what he hoped was an evil laugh. “Go on! You couldn’t get back to Holand tonight even if you went this second! You’re in a nice fast northerly current, and in this wind you’ll be lucky if you make it back by morning. Hoe Point is where that current starts, and that’s Hoe Point back there, you flaming amateur! Look at your chart if you don’t believe me.” He saw he had demoralized them. Ynen’s face was warm pink, and he was staring at Hildy as if the end of the world had come. Mitt was so pleased that he added, “I was sailing out of Holand before you were born.” That was a mistake. Hildy gave him a jeering look. Mitt scowled at her. “Just sail North and don’t give me any trouble,” he said. “And you won’t have any trouble from me. I can’t say fairer than that, can I?”
Hildy sighed to cover up her thoughts. Unpleasant as this boy was, he did bluster rather. To judge by Ynen’s face, he was right about the current, but that did not mean he had thought of everything. “I suppose we’d better humor him, Ynen,” she said. She stared hard at Ynen, slowly shutting her eyes and opening them, to show him that the boy would have to sleep sometime.
Mitt knew that, too. Even a sweet boat like Wind’s Road would take three or four days to reach North Dalemark waters. No one could stay awake that long. Mitt was tired to death already. He felt his only course was to keep these children thoroughly intimidated by being as rough and danger
ous and brutal as he could. He seemed to have made a fairly good start. So, while Ynen was nodding gravely at Hildy to show her he understood, Mitt roared out, “Right, then. Now that’s settled, go and get out your eatables. I’m starving. Hurry up!”