The Smugglers by Iain Lawrence

he'll see me all weepin' and sad, and say, 'Why, bless your heart, Cap'n Crowe, here's a guinea for your troubles.' ”
    He stepped toward me; I scuttled backward.
    “Och, laddie,” he said. “Ye canna go far.”
    I knew he was right, and I had never felt so helpless. Wherever I ran, he could follow. He would toss me over the side without a thought, and I would drown in the
Dragon
's wake, watching her shrink in the fog. I stood up and stepped back toward the mainmast.
    “Take him, Harry,” said Crowe.
    I had no time to look behind me. I heard a footstep on the deck and felt arms encircling my chest. The cook held me in an iron grip, and his breath was hot and spongy on my neck.
    “Just give me your word,” said Crowe. “I ask no more than that.”
    “I won't,” I said.
    “Whit a shame,” said Crowe. “Whit an affy shame.” Then he grabbed me by the wrist and tore me away from Harry. He lifted me right from the deck and turned toward the rail. He held me there as the deck heaved up, and I knew I had but a moment left to live.
    The
Dragon
shuddered at the peak of her roll. She started back, and the sea came soaring up toward us. And Crowe stepped closer to the side.
    “Stop!” I cried. “I've got the book. I've got Larson's book!”
    He hesitated. The deck dipped down toward the sea and slowly rose again. “Ye're grasping at straws,” he said. But in his eyes I saw a doubt.
    “You'll never find that book,” I said. “But someone will. A week from now-a month from now–it will surely come to light. And they'll hang you then, and all your gang. They'll bind your arms and put a noose around your neck, and – ”
    “Shut up!” roared Captain Crowe.
    My words had found their mark. He rubbed his big fists across his cheeks, smearing the dead man's blood. I felt as though I'd planted a bomb down in the depths of the ship and armed it with a slow match.
    “It's all written in the book,” I said. “The names of every smuggler.” I spoke quickly, blurting it out. “Harry saw it. Ask him if he didn't.”
    Crowe stared at me with his glowering eyes. There was a glimmer there I'd never seen before–a hint of fear, I thought.
    “Whit's he blethering about?” he asked.
    “It's true,” said Harry. “He's got the book; you gived it to him, Captain, sir. And full of names it is, Captain Crowe. I seen it for myself.”
    “Where is it, then?” asked Crowe. He cast me down to the scuppers, half against the rail. His enormous hand spread across my chest, and he held me to the deck. “Where is it?” he asked again.
    “Somewhere safe,” I told him. “I hid it down below.”
    “Ye hid it?” He barked a horrid laugh. “Weel, ye're got your wits about ye, I'll grant ye that. And now ye're going to go and fetch it.” Then he added with a sneer, “If ye please,
Mister
Spencer.”
    “Why?” I asked. “So you can throw it with me over the side?”
    I saw the veins pulsing in his neck, his teeth grinding hard together as a flash of anger burned through his fingers and into my arm. Then he shook himself, and his grip relaxed.
    He said, “No one's going to hurt ye.”
    I feared him most of all in this mask of calm. “Listen, John,” he said. “Give me the manny's book, and when we've got the barrels ashore, we'll go along to London. Your father gets his ship and cargo, he gets his profit–and a little more perhaps; aye, a little more–and that's the end o' the matter. No harm to no one.”
    With his narrow, folded eyes, his rows of teeth showing in a ghastly smile, he looked like a grinning snake. “No harm to no one,” he said again.
    “All right,” I told him. It seemed I had no choice. “I'll give you the book.”
    “Fine.” He let me go. He stared at me and frowned. “Well, fetch it, then.”
    “Not yet,” said I. “When we get to London, when we're tied to Father's dock,
then
you get the book. But not before.”
    I heard Dasher laugh. “A deadlock,” he said. “A lovely