The storm blew for the rest of the night. When the sun came up, it ended. The ship rolled upon the big waves the storm left behind, but the clouds moved away to the east. By mid-morning, the sun was shining down upon the sea and the ship. The sailors began to tidy up the deck. There were tangled ropes and pieces of broken wood all over the place, and glass from broken lanterns. Two sailors worked all morning repairing the ship's railing where it had cracked under the rear mast.
Garibaldi was so tired that he lay in his cabin and fell asleep. He felt seasick again, but he was happy. Sallina sat beside him watching him sleep for a while, and then went up on deck to offer her help to the sailors.
"Pops could use some help in the kitchen," the Captain said.
"I'm not much good in a kitchen."
"Well, Dan and Otis are repairing the jib sail. That's a big job. You can sew?"
"Yes."
So Sallina spent the morning with Otis and Dan sewing up the jib sail. The jib sail was a big triangular piece of heavy cloth made of cotton. The sewing around the edges of the sail had stretched during the storm. Otis, Dan, and Sallina sewed the edges once again to make them strong. Sewing the cloth was difficult, because it was so thick and stiff.
"What makes the cloth so stiff?" Sallina said, "Is it salt from the sea?"
"No, Miss," Otis said. He smiled through his thick white beard, showing his yellow teeth. "There's beeswax in the cloth, Miss, to keep the water out."
She looked at the sails above her. The rear mast of the ship was gone, but the Reliant still had her front and middle masts, and each of these masts held several sails. Each sail was stretched tight in the wind. The wind pushed the sails, and the sails pulled the ship across the water.
"You would need a lot of bees to make that much wax," she said.
"Oh," Otis said, and shook his head. "Only the storm jib has the beeswax, so it doesn't get wet when it dips into the breakers. It's a special trick of the Captain's. The other sails are just sail-cloth, and still tough enough to sew."
By lunchtime, Sallina's fingers were sore from pushing a big needle through the sail cloth hundreds of times. She was hungry, too. The cook brought them chunks of meat, bread, and cheese, and they ate lunch on deck. The weather was warm. They drank water from one of the rain barrels. There were three barrels, but one of them had broken in the storm, and seawater had leaked into the other, so it was too salty to drink.
"No matter," the Captain said, when Harry told him about the salt in the rain barrel, "we shall be in Kublaminsk in two days. One barrel will keep us going until then, even if it doesn't rain."
After lunch, Garibaldi came up from below. He held the brass rail next to the door. In his other hand he held his axe. He stood and blinked in the bright sunlight.
When they saw him, the sailors cheered. They gathered around him and patted him on the back and shook his hand. The Captain stood above them on the aft deck.
"Sailors," he said, "As you all know, this young man saved our lives last night. And he saved Sharpy's life twice over." He took a deep breath. "Three cheers for Garibaldi!"
"Hip-hip hooray!" the sailors and the Captain shouted. "Hip-hip hooray! Hip-hip hooray!"
Garibaldi stood smiling. Sallina was at the front of the ship next to the jib sail, watching him. She smiled too. Who could have known that Garibaldi, the woodcutter's son, was so brave? I knew, she thought. I knew it all along.
In the afternoon, Sallina visited Sharpy and Jasper, both of whom were lying in the infirmary with broken bones. The infirmary was the cabin opposite Sallina and Garibaldi's. Dan had set Sharpy's leg and Jasper's arm, and made casts for them. Now they had to lie in bed for a few days, and wear the casts for another month. He gave them medicine to help them with the pain they felt, but they were still white in the face as they lay there.
There was a cupboard on the wall in the infirmary with twenty books in it. Sallina picked one, and read to the two sailors to keep their minds off the pain in their broken bones. The story was about pirates and sea monsters. It made the Jasper and Sharpy laugh, and they thanked her for it.
"You read well," Sharpy said.
"Thank you. Can you read?"
Jasper laughed. "He's a scholar's son Miss. He reads in a dozen languages."
"Three," Sharpy said.
"He taught me to read," Jasper said. "Or tried to, anyways. I'm still not much good at it."
Sallina nodded. After a moment, she smiled. She would teach Garibaldi to read.
The next day there was no wind at all. The ship sat on the sea going nowhere. There were hardly any waves, and the sun was hot. But Garibaldi felt perfectly well. Without the waves to rock the ship, he did not feel seasick.
At mid-morning, the Captain called out, "Close the toilet pipe! Lower the side-shrouds! Swim at your pleasure!"
The sailors cheered. They threw some kind of net over the side of the ship. It was made of rope, with holes big enough to put your head through. Sallina leaned over the rail and looked at it. The shroud was like many rope-ladders next to one another. The ship had other shrouds that went up from the ship's rail to the masts. The sailors used the shrouds to climb up to the sails.
The sailors took their clothes off, left them in piles on the deck, and jumped over the side of the ship naked. Garibaldi did the same. They landed one after another with noisy splashes in the clear seawater. Sallina did not follow them. She was frightened of the sea. It was not like the rivers and ponds she swam in back home. It was much deeper, and it went on as far as she could see in every direction.
The crew ate a lunch of bread, cheese, and plums on deck. In the afternoon, the sun was hotter than ever, and there was still no wind. Garibaldi and the sailors went swimming. Sallina watched them playing in the water. She was hot and uncomfortable. The sailors were having so much fun. They were not scared of the sea. They all swam in it.
She took off her clothes and walked to the railing.
"Here she comes at last," Harry said, "It's about time!".
The sailors cheered.
Sallina looked down at the sailors in the water and frowned. "Do you think I need a bath?"
"No, Miss, certainly not," Harry said, "But we know how nice it is in the water, and we were hoping you would come and enjoy it too. And we figure if you don't, you're going to get bad-tempered."
Sallina shook her head. She did not know if she should be flattered that they cared about her temper, or insulted that they thought they had to worry about whether she was in a good mood or not.
Instead of jumping over the edge, which she decided was too dangerous, she climbed down the shrouds. Garibaldi was waiting for her at the bottom. Before she could think any more about how deep the sea was, she let herself slip gently into the water beside him. She felt better right away. She held onto the shrouds and moved her legs. The water was cool and clean. She tasted it on her lips, and it was salty. More salty than tears.
"How do you like it?" Garibaldi said.
She smiled at him and closed her eyes. "I like it."
She held on to the shrouds and looked out across the waves. There was no land in sight. Her heart beat faster. She took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the ship. She put her head under the water and looked down. She floated easily. It seemed as if the sea held her up better than a river. The sun shone down into the blue water below her. She blinked. The sea water did not sting her eyes.
She and Garibaldi swam around the ship together. They looked at the strange shells stuck to the ship's wooden sides, and dived down beneath the water to chase the fish that hid in the ship's shadow. There were a few large, slow-moving, brown fish, and many small, brightly-colored fish. She could not see their colors clearly through the water, but they flashed when she and Garibaldi scared them out of the shadows. At the front of the ship, they saw a crowd of small, shiny, silver fish swimming back and forth together. Sallina swam towards them and they darted out of her way.
How did the little fish live out here in the sea? What did they eat? Did they follow the boat everywhere it went, eating the kitchen scraps that Pops threw overboard? Had they been hiding under the ship last night in the storm? She did not know.
A sailor high up in the main mast cried out. "Shark!"
The sailors in the water splashed back towards the shrouds and climbed out of the water. Harry looked over the railing at Sallina and Garibaldi. "Out of the water, now!"
"Why?" Sallina said.
"There's a shark coming."
"What's a shark?"
"A big fish with teeth that might bite you! Come on, get out!"
They swam to the ropes as fast as they could. The sailors were out of the water already, but they did not climb up onto the deck. They held onto the shrouds and looked down at the sea.
"Where is he?" Otis said. "Bring me my spear!"
"He's off to starboard," Harry said.
They were on the port side of the ship. The shark was on the other side. Sallina wanted to see it, so she climbed up to the deck. Garibaldi climbed up after her. She walked to the starboard side, with water dripping from her hair and her body.
The Captain stood beside her and pointed. "There, can you see it?"
Something shaped like a triangle cut through the surface of the sea about fifty steps away across the water (not that you can step across the water, but you know what I mean).
"Does it really eat people?" Sallina said.
"They do sometimes, but hardly ever. Mostly they just bite you. I don't think they like the way we taste. If you cut yourself in the water, and they smell your blood, that's when they come after you. Nobody likes to be in the water with them, so we always have someone up the mast looking out for sharks when we're swimming."
"If you told me this morning that there were monsters in the sea," Sallina said, "I would never have gone in."
"I know that, young lady, I know that." The Captain put his hands in his pockets. "I didn't tell you, and I made sure my men didn't tell you either. Now you have had a lovely swim, and you are much the better for it."
Sallina frowned. She did feel much better, but she did not like what he had done. "I notice that you have not been swimming."
"No, I can't swim."
"You can't swim?" Sallina said. "But you're a sailor."
"I'm full of surprises," he said. He looked down at the deck and smiled. "My wife used to like that about me."
Sallina felt embarrassed again. She decided to stop arguing with the Captain about swimming and sharks.
Garibaldi watched the shark. It swam closer until he could see the dark shape of its body under the water. It was longer than a man. It swam back and forth and away. As soon as it was out of sight, the sailor at the top of the main mast said, "All clear!" and the swimmers jumped back in the water.
Garibaldi and Sallina went down to their cabin to take a nap. The sun and the sea had made them sleepy, and it would be nice to be alone together for a while. Sallina had enjoyed the swimming, but it had reminded her of home. When she and Garibaldi sat in their cabin together she started crying.
"What's the matter?" Garibaldi said.
"I might never see home again, and I already miss it."
Garibaldi put his arm around her. She was right, they might never see their home again. He thought of his father, swinging an axe and chopping wood. His father would be proud to know that his son had saved a man from drowning. But he might never be able to tell his father the story. He pulled Sallina close to him.
In the late afternoon, there was a slight wind. The ship moved forward, and Garibaldi and Sallina came out on deck to see what was happening. Because the ship was moving, the sailors decided to stop swimming and try to catch some fish instead. They took six long fishing poles from a chest on deck, and tied fishing lines and small hooks to them. They put bread on the hooks and lowered them over the side. They caught five or six of the shiny, silver fish Sallina had seen swimming together beneath the ship.
Sallina wondering how many little fish it would take to make a good supper for all twenty-five sailors on the Reliant, plus her and Garibaldi and the Captain. But instead of keeping the fish to eat, the sailors cut them up into pieces. They put big hooks on their fishing lines and put the fish pieces on the big hooks. They lowered the fish pieces down into the water and waited.
"What are you waiting for?" Sallina said to Otis.
"You'll see," Otis said.
The afternoon was nearly over, and Sallina was thinking of going down below to have another nap, when one of the fishermen shouted, "Got one!"
Within the space of a few seconds, all six poles had fish pulling on them. One of the fishermen had put his pole down so he could light his pipe, and when the fish took his bait, his pole flew up in the air and down into the sea.
"Curse it!" he said.
The other five poles were bent over from the pull of the fish on the line. The sailors cheered the fishermen. The fishermen leaned back against the pull of the fish.
One of the poles snapped, leaving one half in the hands of the fisherman while the other half disappeared into the sea.
"Aw!" the sailors said, "Bad luck."
Another pole snapped.
"These are big ones," Harry said.
For a while, there were three fishermen fighting three fish with their poles and fishing lines. Sallina wondered how big the fish were, to snap the fishing poles. Were they sharks? How long would it take to tire the fish out?
One of the lines snapped.
"No!" the sailors said, "Don't pull so hard!"
Another line snapped. The sailor holding the pole fell backwards onto the deck and banged his head.
Dan laughed. "Fishing is a dangerous business."
There was only one person left with a fish on his line, and that was Otis.
Harry smiled at Sallina. "Exciting, isn't it?"
"Yes," Sallina said.
Harry pointed at Otis. "That's his own fishing pole. He made it himself from bamboo."
Otis's bamboo fishing pole was bent right over. The tip pointed down at the sea, and shook back and forth all the time.
The sailors crowded around Otis. Garibaldi and Sallina stood as near as they could. They leaned over the side, hoping to see the fish in the water below.
"Steady, Otis, steady," Harry said.
"Don't tell the old boy how to fish!" the Captain said from the aft deck, "He was catching tuna before you could net a goldfish in a bowl."
Otis held the thick end of his bamboo rod with both hands. The other end shook around constantly as the fish pulled on the line.
"Dan," Otis said, "You're going to have to go down the ladder and get him with the grappling hook."
One of the sailors took a pole out of the long chest. At the end of the pole was a large hook, much larger than a fishing hook. The sailor brought the pole to Dan. Dan took the pole and climbed down the shrouds to the water.
"There he is!" Harry shouted.
A fat fish struggled beneath the water at the end of Otis's fishing line. It had a bright yellow tail that flashed in the late afternoon sun.
"I see him!" Dan said.
"Wait," Otis said, "Wait until I tire him out."
Dan stood on the shrouds. He held the pole in one hand. The sailors leaned over the ship's rail. They watched the fish swim back and forth along the side of the ship. At first it swam quickly. But as time went by, it slowed down. As the sun sank towards the horizon, the fish was hardly swimming any more. It was turning in the water, swimming and floating.
Otis pulled it to the surface and shouted, "Now!"
Dan plunged the grappling hook down with a splash, hooked the fish by the gills, and pulled it half out of the water. The fish shivered on the grappling hook. Several sailors climbed over the side and grabbed the other end of the grappling hook's pole. They pulled the fish up the side of the ship and threw it on the deck.
The fish landed next to Sallina with a thud. She jumped back in surprise. She had never seen a fish so large. It did not look like a river fish at all. Its fins were small and its body was fat and egg-shaped. It did not flap around like a river fish. Instead, it shivered all over and banged its yellow tail on the deck. The sound of its tail banging the deck was like the sound of a drummer playing too loud and too fast without stopping, or like the sound you can make by dragging a stick along a fence while you are running.
"What type of fish is it?" Sallina said to the Captain.
"A yellow-finned tuna."
The sailors patted Otis on the back. That night, everyone ate as much tuna as they wanted. Instead of eating below, where it was hot, they ate out in the open air, sitting on the deck. Pops cooked the tuna on a fire in a big metal bowl. Sallina and Garibaldi had never tasted tuna before. They liked it. It was rich and oily, and made them feel full and happy.
The wind grew stronger that night, blowing from the south-west. Sallina and Garibaldi slept together in the lower bunk.
The next day was Sallina and Garibaldi's fourth day on the ship. After breakfast, Sallina sat down on the lower bunk with the bag of gold in her lap. "Let's count it."
Garibaldi nodded. He was feeling sea-sick, but trying not to show it. He stood near the window and looked out at the sea.
Sallina poured the gold onto the bed. A beam of sunlight shone through their cabin window and onto the gold. It sparkled and gleamed.
"Wow," she said. She picked up a handful of pieces. "They look brand new. You would never know that they had been buried under the ground for a hundred years."
She picked up a piece and put it back in the bag.
"One," she said.
She put another piece in the bag.
"Two."
She counted the gold, one piece at a time.
"Nine hundred and seventy-seven," she said, "and that's after we gave twenty to the Captain, one handful to the old man, five to the innkeeper in Godiva, and two handfuls to the crowd of people. How many pieces were in each of those handfuls, do you think?"
Garibaldi shrugged his shoulders. "In don't know."
Sallina poured the gold out onto the bed again and picked up a handful. "This much?"
Garibaldi nodded.
Sallina counted the pieces in her hand. She dropped them one by one onto the bunk.
"Thirty. So we have nine hundred and seventy-seven pieces left, and we spent about one hundred and twenty pieces so far."
Garibaldi nodded.
Sallina buried her hand in the warm pile of gold. "Shall we keep it all in the bag, or shall we each of us carry half of it?"
"The Captain has a strong-box in his room," Garibaldi said. "I would like to give him my half of the gold to him for safe-keeping."
"Really? You trust him that much?"
Garibaldi raised his eyebrow. Why did she ask if he trusted the Captain? Surely it was obvious to her that he trusted the Captain, or else he would not want to give his money to the Captain for safe-keeping.
"What if he won't give the money back to you?"
"He will."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I'm sure."
Sallina shook her head. If Garibaldi had a good reason to trust the Captain, why not tell her?
"You remember what Ephistra told us?" she said, "Even people who seem kind will want to steal the gold."
"Well," Garibaldi said, "That does not mean that all people who seem kind will want to steal the gold."
Sallina looked at the floor. Garibaldi sat down beside her and put his hand upon her knee. "The Captain and the sailors could take it any time if they wanted to."
"But they don't know we have it."
"The Captain knows."
Sallina rubbed her eyes. It was warm in their cabin. She needed a drink of water.
"You're probably right," she said.
She sat up straight and looked at the gold.
"Okay, let's divide it in two."
They made two new piles of gold by taking one coin each from the pile. When they were done, they had their two equal piles, but there was still one piece left.
"The nine hundred and seventy-seventh piece," Sallina said.
"You take it," Garibaldi said, "as payment for doing all the counting."
"Okay," Sallina said, "I will."
And then she kissed him.
In the afternoon, Garibaldi went to the Captain's cabin and knocked on the door.
"Enter!" the Captain said.
Garibaldi stepped inside.
"Good afternoon, Captain."
"Good afternoon, young man, what can I do for you?"
"I see that you have a strong-box. May I put a bag of gold in it for safe-keeping?"
The Captain smiled. "That you may, but we must count the gold together, and write two copies of a note saying how much there is, and we must sign the note together, so that we will be sure to agree later about how much gold you gave me."
"Oh," Garibaldi said, "I had better go and get Sallina."
"Why is that?"
"I can't read or write."
"Oh," the Captain said, "Well go get her then. And when you have time, ask her to teach you to read and write. It's not so hard, you know."
Garibaldi nodded.
Garibaldi went back to the Captain's cabin later that morning, this time with Sallina, and he gave the Captain four hundred and fifty gold pieces wrapped in a piece of cloth he tore from his old shirt. That left him with a handful of gold pieces to carry around in his pocket. The Captain opened the cloth on his table and counted the gold pieces. When he had finished, he counted them again.
"Four hundred and fifty," the Captain said. "Do you agree?"
"Yes," Garibaldi said.
"But they are not all the same weight. Some are ten-gram pieces, which we call guineas. Some are heavier and some are lighter."
Garibaldi nodded.
"Shall we just say four hundred and fifty gold pieces of various weights?" the Captain said.
Garibaldi looked at Sallina. She nodded.
"Fine," Garibaldi said.
The Captain took out a pen and two pieces of paper and wrote two letters saying that Garibaldi had given him four hundred and fifty gold pieces of various weights. The Captain signed his name at the bottom. Because Garibaldi could not write, the Captain showed him how to dip his thumb in ink, wipe off most of the ink with a cloth, and make a thumb-print. Garibaldi put his thumb-print on both of the letters.
"And now we need a witness," the Captain said, "Please sign," he said, and handed his pen to Sallina.
Sallina signed her name to both letters. The Captain looked at the letters one more time, and gave one to Garibaldi.
"I will keep this one. You keep that one. You don't need it to get your gold back from me, but keep it safe anyway."
"Thank you," Garibaldi said.
The Captain put the gold in his strong-box and locked the box shut. "It is the least I can do for someone who saved the ship and all our lives."
Garibaldi and Sallina stood in front of the Captain's table. The Captain sat down on one of the benches. Garibaldi frowned.
"Is there something else?"
"We would like to talk to you, Captain, and ask your advice," he said.
"Certainly, please sit down."
They sat down.
Sallina put her hands upon the table. "You know our story, or you have guessed it. You know we can't go home."
"Yes, that much I know."
"But we want to go home."
"I'm sure you do."
"Is there any way we can go home without going to jail?" Sallina said.
The Captain thought for a moment. "Well now, there must be a way." He tapped his fingers on the table. "I bet the Duke would accept a fine instead of jail."
"A fine?" Sallina said.
"Yes, a fine. You pay him a fine, instead of going to jail."
"Well that would be easy, because we have all this gold."
The Captain smiled. "Yes, you do, but it's his gold, as far as he thinks. So you would have to give him back all of his gold, and pay a fine as well."
Sallina frowned. "How can we do that?"
"There are two ways to do it. One way is to lie to him about how much gold you found. You could say it was eight hundred guineas, and then pay him a fine of one hundred guineas. Thus you would give him nine hundred guineas, and still have a few left over for yourself."
"How do you know how much gold we have?" Sallina said.
"I'm guessing. I figure that Garibaldi just gave me his half of the gold, minus the twenty or thirty pieces he has in his pocket, and you still have yours in your bag. So that makes nine hundred and sixty pieces in all, give or take a few."
"We found almost one thousand one hundred pieces." Garibaldi said.
"I see. Meaning that you have already spent one hundred."
"Yes," Garibaldi said. He was pleased that he understood these large numbers. Sallina just had explained them to him in their cabin, and he had remembered everything she told him. Perhaps he could learn to read and write as well.
Sallina said, "Will the Duke believe us if we tell him that we found only eight hundred gold pieces?"
"He might. He will ask you to swear before God that you are telling the truth. Are you good liars?"
Sallina looked at Garibaldi.
"I don't know," Garibaldi said.
"I can lie," Sallina said. "I would lie to save my life. But not for money." She folded her arms. "What's the other way?"
"You could take your nine hundred guineas and use it to make more money. If you turned your nine hundred guineas into thirteen hundred, you could pay a two-hundred guinea fine and return the eleven-hundred as well."
"What is eleven-hundred?" Garibaldi said.
"It's the same as one thousand and one hundred," Sallina said.
Garibaldi nodded and frowned. "How can we make money with money? Do we melt the gold and make smaller coins?"
The Captain laughed. "No! That won't work, because the Duke will weigh the gold, and he will know how heavy it is. It does not matter how many pieces there are, only how much they weigh when you put them all together."
"How can we do it, then?" Garibaldi said.
"The same way we traders do it. We buy things with gold in one place, take them to another place, and sell them for more gold than we paid for them. In Kublaminsk, I'm going to buy furs. Suppose I buy some furs for a hundred guineas, and then sell them somewhere else for two hundred. I have one hundred guineas more than I started. That one hundred guineas extra is called my profit. You use money to make more money by making a profit."
"That sounds easy," Garibaldi said.
"It does sound easy, and so does cutting down trees. But you have to know what you are doing or you pay too much for things, or you buy more than you can sell. What if I can't sell my furs? What do I do with them? I don't want them, so I have to sell them. It takes practice to know what to buy, where to sell it, and how much you can sell it for."
"Can you help us?" Garibaldi said.
The Captain tapped his fingers on the table. "I could give you my advice. But if my advice proves to be wrong, you would blame me, and I don't want you to blame me. It will be far better for both of you if you make your own decisions. That is the most important advice I can give you. Make your own decisions."
Sallina nodded. "Okay."
"We can talk more about this later," the Captain said, "But now I have work to do."
Sallina and Garibaldi stood up. Sallina had more questions, but she understood that the Captain wanted them to leave. Sallina wondered if she could help him with whatever he had to do.
"What do you have to do?"
"I have to look at some maps," the Captain said, "to make sure we are going in the right direction. I like to look at my maps by myself."
"Oh," Sallina said.
Garibaldi opened the door of the cabin.
"Thank you again," Sallina said.
"You're welcome."