Garibaldi woke up. It was dark. He was lying upon rolls of cloth. The ship was rocking. He felt unwell. He needed to pee.
"Sallina," he said.
Sallina moved closer to him and whispered in his ear. "Well, here we are, all alone in a crate of silk."
"Yes, we are."
"What are we going to do?" she said, and kissed his ear.
Garibaldi flinched. He did not like being kissed on the ear. It was noisy.
"The thing is," Garibaldi said, "I need to pee."
"Oh," Sallina said. She lay her head back on the silk. "So do I."
"And I'm pretty hungry and thirsty too," Garibaldi said.
Sallina nodded in the darkness. "So am I."
"And I think I'm going to throw up."
"What?" she said. "Oh. You're seasick."
"Is that what it is?"
"Have you ever been on a boat before?"
"Only on the river," Garibaldi said.
"Me too. But I read in a book that people get sick on boats in the sea."
"Oh."
They lay in silence for a minute.
"You can read?" Garibaldi said.
"Of course I can. I went to school."
Garibaldi had never been to school. He had helped his father chop wood since he was old enough to carry a hatchet.
"Can you read?" Sallina said.
"No."
"I'll teach you," Sallina said, "when we find a good place to stay."
"I'm not sure I'm smart enough," Garibaldi said.
"Of course you are, silly," Sallina said, and nudged him with her elbow.
The ship creaked as it rolled in the water. Some sailors were talking nearby. There was no more shouting or banging.
"I really have to pee," Garibaldi said.
"So, pee, then."
"What, on the silk?"
"Where else?"
"I'll ruin it."
"I don't see that you have much choice," Sallina said. "You're going to have to pee sooner or later, so you might as well pee now, so you can relax."
"I'm going to call out to the sailors and ask them to let us out of the box."
"No, don't do that," Sallina said.
"Why not?" Garibaldi said.
"They will turn around and go back to Godiva."
Would the Captain turn the ship around, Garibaldi wondered? He did not think so. Would the Captain try to take the gold? Maybe. Garibaldi had listened to the sailors while they were preparing the ship to leave. He thought they sounded like good people. The Captain had said good-morning to them in Godiva. He had looked straight at Sallina and Garibaldi and smiled. He had slowed his walk, and Garibaldi thought he was going to stop and talk to them. But for some reason, the Captain had changed his mind and kept going across the street.
"No, they won't turn around," Garibaldi said.
"Well then, they'll steal our gold."
"No, I don't think they'll do that either. They don't sound like thieves. And anyway, we don't have to tell them about the gold. We could keep it secret."
"I suppose so," Sallina said.
"But if we ruin the silk," Garibaldi said, "They will certainly be angry with us, and who knows what they will do then. So I think we should call to them and ask them to let us out before we have to pee."
Sallina thought for a while. She did not want to pee in the crate either. And she was hungry. They had no food. They had no water. If the ship was out on the sea for more than a day, she and Garibaldi would have to call to the sailors so they could eat and drink. She did not know what the sailors would do with her and Garibaldi. But Garibaldi was right. Sooner or later, they would have to call to the sailors. So they should do it now, before they ruined the silk by peeing on it.
"Okay," Sallina said, "Go ahead."
"Now?"
"Yes, now, let's get it over with."
"Okay."
"No, wait," Sallina said.
"Why?"
In the darkness, Sallina kissed Garibaldi's lips. "There, now shout."
Garibaldi shouted.
A little while later, a crowd of sailors pried the lid of the crate off with a metal crow-bar. Sunlight shone upon Garibaldi and Sallina's faces. They held up their hands to shield their eyes from the bright light. The sailors pulled the lid off and put it on the deck. The Captain stood next to the crate.
Garibaldi and Sallina sat up. The sailors laughed at the sight of them sitting there on the silk.
"There you go, Captain," one of them said. He was tall and thin, and about forty years old. "We told you the box was heavy."
Garibaldi recognized the sailor's voice. It was the sailor called Harry.
The Captain shook his head, "They don't look like they weigh much to me."
"We don't take passengers," another sailor said. He was short and wiry, with gray hair and lines around his mouth and eyes. "We're a cargo ship." He pointed at Sallina and Garibaldi. "That makes you stowaways."
"Thank you, Dan," the Captain said. He walked around the crate to be closer to Garibaldi and Sallina. He looked at them.
"I remember you," he said, "You were standing in the street. I said good-morning to you. After that, you must have climbed into the crate." He put one hand upon the wall of the crate and smiled. "Most enterprising of you."
He looked at the silk. "You haven't soiled my silk have you?"
"No, sir," Sallina said, "We decided to call out to you before we caused any damage to your goods."
"Most considerate of you," the Captain said.
"You could have got out before we carried you on board," Harry said, "and walked up the gang plank for us. That would have been considerate."
The sailors laughed.
"We wanted to stay out of sight," Sallina said.
"The police were searching for a young man and woman," Dan said.
"That's right!" Harry said, "A soldier asked me if I'd seen them."
"And why are the police chasing after you?" the Captain said, "If it's not too impolite a question to ask."
Sallina looked at Garibaldi. What should she say? Garibaldi looked back at her. He was thinking the same thing.
"Come on," the Captain said, "Surely you must remember."
"We were falsely accused of a crime," Sallina said.
What a clever woman, Garibaldi thought.
"What sort of crime?"
"Theft."
The Captain frowned. He turned and spoke to his crew. "Well sailors, what do you think? Shall we go back to Godiva and turn them over to the police, or keep them on board?"
While Sallina and Garibaldi sat in the crate, the sailors talked among themselves. They spoke quickly and quietly. Many of them had strange voices. Garibaldi thought they must come from far-away places.
While the sailors talked, the Captain stared at Sallina and Garibaldi. Sallina smiled at him, but he did not smile back. She looked up at the sails. The wind pushing on the sails made the ship creak. She looked around at the deck. It had three parts to it. There was the main deck, where they were. The main deck was the largest. And there were front and rear decks as well, which were higher up than the main deck. You had to walk up some steps from the main to get to each of them. Where the main deck ended and the rear deck began, there was a wall about as high as a man's shoulder. In the middle of this wall was a door. The door was tied open. Beyond it, Sallina saw stairs going down into the ship. There was another door in the wall beneath the front deck, but this other door was at one end of the wall instead of in the middle.
Most of the sailors said "Aye." Sallina figured that was a sailor's way of saying, "Yes."
Harry put his hands behind his back and stood up straight. "We don't think we should go back, sir."
"Indeed not," the Captain said. "Our customers are waiting, and we are not policemen."
"But on the other hand, sir, we don't take passengers."
"Indeed we do not. And yet," The Captain pointed to Sallina and Garibaldi sitting in the crate. "We appear to have two of them, all the same."
"We do, Captain, that's plain to see. There they are sitting on the silk."
Harry put his hands in his pockets and stared at Garibaldi and Sallina. The Captain waited.
"Go on, Harry," the Captain said.
"Well, sir, given that we have passengers, we should ask them to pay for riding on our ship, sir."
"I was thinking the same thing myself. If they pay, they can be passengers, and their business in Godiva is their own business. But if they can't pay, then they are stealing a ride on our ship, and we must turn them over to the police when we reach our next port."
"Please don't do that," Sallina said, "We are happy to pay. We have at least fifty gold pieces."
Garibaldi looked at her. She was right, they did have at least fifty gold pieces. They had a hundreds of gold pieces, maybe thousands. She had not lied to the Captain.
The Captain laughed. "Now, now, young woman. Fifty gold pieces is a lot of money. Don't go telling everyone how much money you have. Not everyone is as honest and fair-dealing as we are."
"Thank you for the advice," Sallina said.
"You're welcome. And I'll thank you for twenty of your gold pieces for a voyage across the Satian Sea."
Garibaldi reached into his bag. He was glad he had put Sallina's dirty clothes in the bag that morning, because now, when he opened the bag, it looked as if the bag was full of clothes, and the clinking of the gold inside was muffled by the folds of cloth. He took out a handful of gold pieces. From these, he counted twenty. Sallina watched him count. He counted quickly. He could not read, but he could count. When he finished counting, he had twenty gold pieces in one hand. He put the rest of the coins in the bag and handed the twenty coins to the Captain.
"There you are," he said.
"Thank you, young sir," the Captain said, "You are a gentleman." He held the coins up in the sunlight and bent his head to look at them. He touched them with his fingers. He scratched one against another. The sailors watched him silently.
The Captain closed his hands upon the coins and looked at his crew. "Twenty guineas."
The sailors nodded and spoke quietly to one another, saying things like, "Good," "Aye," "It's as well for them," "That's a fair price," and, "We can use it."
The Captain put the coins in a pouch hanging from his belt. He looked at Sallina and Garibaldi. "Climb out of the crate, will you, I want to get the lid back on again and get the crate wrapped before we hit any big waves. The sea-water splashes right over the deck." He smiled. "It can be quite frightening."
Sallina and Garibaldi climbed out of the crate and stood on the deck.
"Harry and Dan," the Captain said, "Will you give up your cabin until land-fall for one guinea each?"
Dan smiled at the Captain. One of his front teeth was made of gold. "Aye, I'll do it. I think you've judge well, Captain."
"I'll do it too," Harry said.
"Very well gentlemen, go below and clear it out."
"Right you are, sir," Harry said.
Dan nodded.
They went down the stairs beneath the rear deck. They had to go one at a time because the stairs were so narrow. Harry stepped aside so Dan could go first.
The Captain turned to Sallina and Garibaldi. "You will have Harry and Dan's cabin, and you can eat at my table in the evening if it pleases you. We'll be at sea for three days."
"Thank you, Captain," Sallina said.
"Now," the Captain said, "Let's get this crate closed up and down in the hold."
Garibaldi gave the bag of gold and his axe to Sallina. He helped the sailors put the lid back on the crate and nail it down. The Captain stood next to Sallina, watching Garibaldi hammering nails through the lid of the crate. "That's a heavy bag of clothes you have there, Miss."
Sallina looked at him and at the bag. "Yes, we like heavy clothes were I come from."
The Captain smiled and nodded. "Those guineas are old but hardly used. Hardly scratched."
Sallina said nothing.
The sailors wrapped the crate twice in huge sail-cloths. They did this by lifting one side of it up, pushing the cloth under, and lifting the other side. They had to fold the cloth in a particular way so it would come out from under the other side of the crate properly.
When the sail-cloth was tied up around the crate, the sailors opened two large doors in the deck and laid them flat on either side. Four sailors jumped down into the hole. Their heads were just below the deck. Sallina looked down through the doors. The sailors opened another set of doors in the floor below. The space below those doors was dark.
"Is that the hold?" Sallina said.
"It is indeed," the Captain said.
Five of the sailors, with Garibaldi to help them, lifted the crate, while others passed two thick ropes beneath it. Four sailors jumped down into the hold and moved boxes and bags out of the way until there was space on for the crate.
"Man the ropes!" the Captain called.
Sixteen sailors took hold of the ends of the two ropes that passed under the crate. There were four sailors at each end of each rope. Garibaldi wanted to help, but the Captain stopped him by putting a hand upon his shoulder.
"Watch them do it, young man," the Captain said, "and you'll see how it's done. Next time you can give it a try."
The sailors lifted the ropes and carried the crate right over the opening in the deck.
"Everyone ready?" the Captain said.
"Aye, Captain," the sailors shouted.
"One!" the Captain said.
The sailors let one arm's length of rope pass through their hands. The crate sank a little way into the opening.
"Two!"
The sailors let another arm's length of rope pass through their hands.
"Three!"
When the Captain reached sixteen, the crate touched the floor of the hold. The sailors let go of the ropes, jumped down into the hold, pulled the ropes out from under the crate, tied the crate down, climbed out, shut the doors in the floor below, climbed up onto the main deck, and shut the doors in the deck. Sallina was sure the sailors had done this hundreds of times before, because they did it so quickly, and each of them seemed to know what to do without being told.
"Good," the Captain said. He turned to Sallina and Garibaldi. "Follow me."
The Captain led them down the steps. There was a narrow corridor at the bottom. The ceiling was low. Garibaldi had to bend his head. At the bottom of the stairs they turned and walked along the corridor. The Captain opened a door and showed them a little room with a bunk-bed built into one wall.
"Here you are," he said, "Your cabin. It looks like Harry and Dan have cleared it out well enough for you."
Sallina stepped into the cabin. "Do they mind?"
"Harry and Dan? Not at all," the Captain said, "You're renting it from them. Now, I'll leave you two alone. Welcome to the Reliant."
"Thank you Captain," Sallina said.
Garibaldi was still standing in the corridor.
"Captain," he said, "Do you have toilets on this ship?"
The Captain laughed. "I should hope so, young man! We wouldn't be a very happy ship if we had no toilets, would we now? Come this way, both of you, and I'll show you."
The Captain led them back along the corridor to a door near the bottom of the steps. He opened the door, and the three of them stepped inside. There were four white toilets and two white wash-basins against the outer wall. There were three small, round windows in the wall, and all three windows were open. The air was fresh and salty. Sallina heard the sea-water outside, splashing upon the side of the ship.
"We're proud of our toilets," the Captain said. He walked to a large barrel that sat on the floor behind the door. He took the lid off the barrel and pulled out a bucket full of water. "They work like this." He held the bucket of over the nearest toilet. "First you do what you have to do, and then you pour a bucket of water on top." He poured the water into the toilet and stepped back.
"Look!"
Sallina and Garibaldi stood beside the toiled and looked inside. The water was going around in circles in the bowl. It went rushing down the hole in the bottom, and disappeared.
"Where does it go?" Garibaldi said.
"It goes down a pipe, out the side of the boat, and into the sea. Unless we close the pipe, in which case it sits in a tank until we open the pipe again. We usually close the pipe when we're in port."
Garibaldi nodded.
"But you can't keep it closed forever," Sallina said.
The Captain smiled. "That's right. We open it at night when the tide is going out, and hope that the water in the harbor carries everything away before we wake up in the morning."
"I see," Sallina said, "That's considerate of you."
"Thank you. Now, we have some toilet rules on this ship. The first rule is that you have to pump water into the barrel whenever you can." He showed them an iron water pump next to the barrel. "This pump brings up sea-water from beneath the ship. When the sea is rough, it doesn't work well, so we pump only when the sea is calm, like now." He raised and lowered the pump lever six or seven times. After the last push, water rushed out of the pump and into the barrel.
He smiled at Garibaldi. "It's good for you, you know."
"Even the Captain pumps the water?" Sallina said.
"Actually, no. I don't have to. But you have to."
Sallina nodded. "And the other rules?"
The Captain coughed into his hand. "Ah yes, well..."
Garibaldi raised one eyebrow.
"You have to clean yourself after you sit on the toilet."
"Clean yourself?"
"Yes, clean your private parts, with water."
"Oh," Sallina said. "That seems reasonable."
"It's important on a ship, where we live so close together, that everyone stay clean. It stops the spread of sicknesses and parasites."
"What's a parasite?" Garibaldi said.
"A stomach worm is a parasite," Sallina said.
"Quite right," the Captain said. "And there are many others." He pointed to the wash basins. "After your have cleaned your private parts from the bucket of sea water, you have to wash your hands." He walked to the wash basins. "And for washing hands we have fresh water."
Two pipes ran down the wall. Each ended above one of the basins, with a tap at the end. The Captain turned the tap and water rushed into the basin. "This is rain-water." He turned the water off and picked up a bar of soap from a shelf on the wall. "And this is soap. You have to use soap when you wash your hands."
"We will," Sallina said.
"And we don't share towels. You bring your own towel into the bathroom. Do you have towels?"
"No."
"I'll have some sent to your cabin."
"Thank you."
"Try not to use more rain-water than you have to. Sometimes it doesn't rain for a long time and we run out."
"Okay."
Garibaldi stood in front of the toilet at the far end of the room and started to pee into it. Sallina looked at him. Was he really peeing? Yes he was. She stood between him and the Captain. She needed to pee too, but she certainly was not going to pee in front of the Captain. She looked at the door. It had a sliding latch to lock it from the inside, and a sign hanging on a nail. The sign said, "Woman Inside."
The Captain saw Sallina reading the sign.
"You are not the first woman to travel with us," he said.
"There are no women in your crew."
"No. But there were until recently, and my wife used to sail with us."
"She doesn't any more?"
"No," the Captain said, "not any more."
Behind Sallina, Garibaldi was still peeing into the toilet bowl. Why was he peeing while she and the Captain were talking? Didn't he have any manners? She decided to keep talking to the Captain so she would not have to stand there listening to Garibaldi peeing while the Captain looked at her.
"Why doesn't you're wife travel with you any more?"
"She's not with me any more."
"Oh," Sallina said.
Garibaldi was still peeing.
"Why's that, then? Is it difficult being married to a captain? You must be away from home a lot."
The Captain turned and looked out of one of the windows. She began to feel uncomfortable. Had she said something rude?
"My wife was washed overboard in a storm," he said, "She was not tied down."
"Oh," Sallina said. She frowned. She looked over her shoulder. Garibaldi was still peeing.
The Captain opened the door. "I'll let you use the toilets."
"I'm so sorry," Sallina said, "I hope I didn't upset you. I can be rude sometimes."
The Captain smiled at her. "That's okay, Miss, don't worry." He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. "I'm glad to have you aboard."
He put the handkerchief in his pocket and closed the door. Sallina heard his heavy footsteps going down the corridor. She took the sign off its nail, opened the door, found another nail on the other side, and hung the sign upon it. She closed the door and locked it.
Garibaldi was pouring a bucket of water into his toilet and watching the water go down.
"Couldn't you wait to pee until the Captain had gone?" Sallina said, "I was embarrassed."
"No," Garibaldi said, "I couldn't wait."
"You could have asked the Captain to leave first."
Garibaldi looked at her, the bucket in one hand. "Why?"
"Because I was embarrassed."
"Oh." He looked at the floor. "Next time I'll ask the Captain to leave."
"I upset the Captain."
"I noticed that."
"I did it because I was distracted by the sound of you peeing behind me."
Garibaldi raised an eyebrow. Sallina pulled down her trousers and sat on a toilet. She scowled at the wall. Garibaldi smiled. Sallina looked funny, sitting on the toilet being angry.
He walked to a wash-basin and washed his hands and face. There was a mirror above the wash-basin. He looked at his reflection. He needed to shave. One of the sailors would have a spare razor. His reflection moved one way and another. The boat was rolling slowly beneath him. He swayed back and forth.
He had an unpleasant feeling in his stomach.
That afternoon, Garibaldi lay upon the lower bunk in their cabin, feeling sick. Sallina opened the little, round window in the wall and looked out at the sea.
"I have to go up top," Garibaldi said, "I need more fresh air."
"Come and stick your head out this window."
Garibaldi shook his head.
"Should I come with you?" Sallina said.
"Yes."
"Should I bring your axe?"
"No," Garibaldi said, "I can't fight all the sailors, even with my axe, so there is no reason to bring it. Bring the bag."
Sallina sat down on the bunk next to Garibaldi and leaned close to his ear. "I think the Captain knows we have a lot more gold in the bag," she whispered. "He said he thought the bag looked heavy."
"Oh," Garibaldi said. He closed his eyes. He felt terrible. The air below decks was warm and still, and smelled of sailors and oil. "I have to go. Bring the gold."
Sallina followed him out of the cabin and up onto the deck, carrying the bag.
Garibaldi spent a long time leaning over the low wooden wall at the edge of the ship, looking at the waves, and sometimes throwing up. Whenever one of the sailors walked by, they would make a joke about him and laugh. They seemed to have no end of jokes about people being seasick.
"Feeding the fish, are you?" Harry said, when he went by.
"It's not so bad after you've been washed overboard on a rope a few times," Dan said.
"In love with the ship's rail already, young man?"
The ship rolled slowly on the waves, a little bit one way, and a little bit the other way. It rolled forward, sideways, up and down, but always slowly.
It made Garibaldi sick.
Every time Garibaldi threw up, Sallina brought him a cup of water from a barrel on deck. She carried the bag of gold to the barrel, put it down, filled the cup, picked up the bag, and carried the cup to him. Garibaldi drank each cup and thanked her for it.
After the tenth cup, Garibaldi leaned his back against the rail and looked up at the tall poles that held up white sails and all their brown ropes.
Sallina put her arm around him. She held the top of the bag of gold in her other hand, but the bottom of the bag was resting upon the deck. She rested her head upon his shoulder. "I'm sure you will get used to it."
"Get used to being sick?"
"No, get used to being on a boat, so that you don't feel sick."
Garibaldi nodded. He pointed to the poles. "These three big poles are the masts, is that right?"
"Yes."
Garibaldi nodded. "Each one is made from three straight trees tied together. I have never seen trees so straight and so tall that they could make masts like these. They must be pine trees that grow slowly, through hundreds of winters, and grow straight up.
A sailor in a blue apron put his head out of the door beneath the rear deck. "Supper-time!"
"Oh good," Sallina said, "I'm starving."
Garibaldi turned and leaned over the side of the boat.
"I'm not," he said.
"You should try to eat something," Sallina said.
"I really don't want to."
"Well, I want to, but I don't want to go down to the Captain's cabin alone. He invited us to eat with him."
Garibaldi pushed himself away from the rail. He took a mouthful of water from the cup Sallina held, rinsed his mouth, spat over the side, and stood up straight. "Okay, I'll come. But I might have to run up again quickly."