Chapter Sixteen
Nightfall brought the steady drumbeats that carried across the muddy river.
“No, Papa, don’t leave me.” Moira fought against the rushes that grew thicker and taller as she tried to reach her father. “Wait, Papa. Don’t go!”
A snake’s face, the size of a full-grown man’s, rose up and blocked Moira’s path. His laughter sounded like Uncle Tyrus’s.
Moira screamed.
The river melded into the deep, deep ocean. Blue-green suddenly surrounded her as far as she could see. Nothing and no one to hang onto.
Lord, save me!
Despite her efforts to stay afloat, the water covered her face and the world blurred as she sank. She kicked and clawed, desperate to resurface, but the current dragged her down deeper, deeper…
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
Her memorial—except she was still very much alive. She fought the rough sack that covered her as she lay on a hard plank as Brother Tobias had.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
She knew to whom the voice belonged…
“Sam! Help me, Sam!” She tried to rip open the stitches sealing the sack. “Sam!”
She opened her eyes and sucked in a breath. Precious air. She gulped it in. “Don’t throw me overboard,” she panted. “I’m not dead yet.”
“Shh…I’m here, darling.” Sam held her trembling hand between both of his steady ones. A single flickering candle cut through the darkness around them.
“I was drowning.” The words came out on breathless puffs. “I couldn’t breathe.”
“Just a bad dream.”
“Nay. ’Twas real. I was about to slide down the plank, like Brother Tobias.”
“Shh…” He pushed her hair from her face.
“You were reading my eulogy.”
He smiled. “I was reading the Psalms to you. You’ve been restless tonight, calling out for your parents, so I found your Bible. I thought hearing the Scriptures might give you peace.”
“Oh, Sam…” Moira still felt breathless. “I couldn’t breathe.” A sudden and violent coughing attack rocked her body, leaving her even more breathless than her nightmare. When she quieted, she wheezed and then guessed her illness. “Pneumonia?”
“It appears so, yes. But the fact that you’re coughing is good news, according to Rachel. We’ve been hoping…no, praying…that you’d wake up and cough. Our prayers were just now answered.”
As if on cue, another wave of coughing hit. This time it left her with a mouthful of foul-tasting phlegm and a chest that felt as though it were on fire.
Sam encouraged her to spit into an empty bowl. Next he urged her to drink. The water tasted like rum and something else, something bitter.
“What is this that I’m drinking?”
“In addition to rum to purify the water, Rachel added quinine to your portion. She says it will help to loosen the congestion in your chest.” A smile inched its way across his handsome face. “I believe you’re going to be all right.”
“So I was dying?”
“We feared so this past week.” He felt her forehead. “But now your fever’s gone. Glory be to God. It’s a true miracle.”
“I’ve not heard you talk about praising God and miracles before.” Moira’s chest felt like a mule sat on it. She drank the rest of the water.
“I’ve been talking to God quite a bit lately. It appears I’ve behaved like the Prodigal Son.” A little smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “After my father was killed, I went my own way and God decided to turn me around and take me home.”
“Home?”
“To Yemassee Village in which I grew up.”
“Do you think that’s where Brother Tobias was truly headed?”
Sam’s shoulders rose and fell. “I reckon we shall find out soon enough. We drop anchor in Charleston tomorrow morning.”
Moira didn’t find this welcome news. She attempted to sit up and succeeded only when Sam assisted her. “I must make myself presentable.” Her head felt too heavy for her neck to hold. She leaned back against the wooden plank wall.
“Not so fast, my darling daisy.”
“Stop calling me that, Sam.” She turned away from the surprise on his face.
“’Tis an endearment is all.”
Moira hated her weakened condition, hated that she needed him so much. “Endearments imply an intimacy between two people.”
“And?”
“And you’re annulling our marriage as soon as your feet touch down on land. Your affection is as real as…as my nightmare.” She allowed her body to slide back down on the bunk, but rolled onto her side, her back to Sam.
“Moira…”
“No! Don’t tell me how impractical my feelings for you are. I’m quite aware of it.” Tears burst into her eyes, but she wouldn’t let Sam see a single one. He’d warned her from the start. “I owe you my life. I’m eternally grateful for all you’ve done for me. But I also know that”—she swallowed a lump of emotion and forced a steadiness into her voice that she didn’t feel—“you could never settle for a daisy when an entire flower garden lay at your disposal.”
“Hmm…well, I must admit that accurately describes my frame of mind right up until the time I met you.”
Moira’s emotions triggered another fit of coughing and within minutes she lay helplessly weak against Sam’s shoulder. He held her close.
“This voyage has changed me, Moira. I can’t say when it happened precisely, but I know I’ll be debarking the ship as a married man, devoted to my wife.”
Was he joking? Moira pushed off his shoulder and peered into his face. He brushed her tears off her cheeks.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s difficult to explain. First I began to think of you as mine. My darling daisy. Then I began thinking in plural terms, no longer I and me, but us and we.”
“How poetic.”
“Yes, very.”
A smile overruled her tears and Sam urged her back onto his shoulder.
“I love you, Moira. Perhaps I’ve loved you since the evening we met.”
Moira pulled herself back and stared at his earnest expression. “You’re not playacting, are you?”
A slight wag of his head loosened a rakish golden-brown lock that fell alongside his face. “I am as candid as I know how to be, a terrible thing for a spy to admit.”
His words fueled another smile. “I shan’t breathe a word of it.”
“I trust you completely.”
She cupped his face and felt his stubbly jaw against her palms. “I love you too, Sam. But you already know that.”
“I had an inkling, although before you got sick your actions befuddled me.”
It took only seconds for Moira to remember. “The more time I spent with you, the more I loved you. I knew your plans for after we anchored and disembark the ship. I didn’t want to get hurt any more than I felt I already would.” She ran her hands down his face, absorbing his every feature. Then she wrapped her arms around his thick neck and leaned in for a kiss.
“Ah…my darling daisy is no longer withering. ’Tis a good sign.”
Moira’s cheeks flamed at her own brazenness as if her fever had returned tenfold. “Can a wife kiss her husband that way?”
“Anytime she wants to…all day long, in fact.”
She smiled as Sam laid her back down on the bunk. As he stood she grabbed his hand. “There is room for you alongside me.”
“When you’re feeling a little better, my love. You must save your strength. Tomorrow will be a very busy day.”