Ships and Shores; Chapter Two

I know it took a while, but here it is.

Chapter Two

Daryn swung in his hammock, lazily. He was done with his chores for the morning. He took out his pendant that his mother had given him. He swung it before his eyes, staring steadfastly, and remembering her. Joel opened the door suddenly, and it startled Daryn. He dropped the chain, quickly grabbing it, but catching only one end of it. The pendant rolled away on the floor.

“Have you seen Hosea,” Joel asked.

“I think he's on the second deck.”

“'Kay. Thanks.”

Daryn sighed and dropped to the floor to look for it. He saw it a ways away, still rolling. He scrambled for it, all the faster when he saw it go through a hole in the floor. He got to the hole and saw with regret that it was too dark to see the charm. He stretched two of his fingers through the hole, for that was all that would fit, but alas! it did not reach. He withdrew his fingers, or tried to. But they were stuck.

He pulled and pulled but they would not budge. He sighed and backed up as far as he could for extra strength. He braced himself and pulled with all his might. It gave no resistance whatsoever this time and he found himself set painfully on his backside, a part of the floor still attached to his fingers.

“Good heavens,” he cried. “I've broken it!”

He looked in the hole again, a nice square hole, and looked for his pendant. And he saw it; it laid upon a pile of crates, which were of two sizes: tall and wide, and short and wide. There was a whole hold in the hole. He reached for his lost article, but it was too far down.

“Oh great,” he said as he clambered down into the little room. It turned out to be a big room, spanning the length and depth of the boat. There were no crates directly underneath him and he hung from his fingers as he accidentally fitted the hatch back in its place.

“Ahhh,” he cried as his fingers finally gave way and he fell to the ground. He heard foot steps above him and he hid behind a stack of the tall and wide crates. He felt anger at himself for being frightened, as if he had done something wrong. He was at the point of coming out when a great shaft of light came as the door opened and he felt a fear that drowned out all the reasonable thoughts.

“Come on, Corey; we ain't got all day,” Daryn heard.

“Ya quiet yerself. Some un'll 'ear you.” There were quiet footsteps to the shorter crates.

The door closed and the light disappeared. A moment later, a different light filled it's place; someone had lit a lamp.

“An' that 'some un' wouldn' 'appen to be Douglas, would 'e?” Douglas? The first mate? What was going on? Daryn heard wood sliding against wood. It sounded like a crate was being opened that had been un-nailed earlier.

“It's bad enough we 'ave to work fer 'im, but stealing from 'im quite another thing.” Glass rattled against itself.

“'E'd sure tan our 'ides if 'e knew.” A cork was popped from a bottle.

“'Tan our 'ides'! We'd be lucky if 'e didn't split our skulls! 'E'd most likely pin this 'ole lot on us en take off wi' it when they isn't lookin'!” Douglas?! He worked men hard but that seemed a little excessive.

There were great sloshings of liquid.

Daryn felt angry. These men had no right to steal and talk about a man in authority like that. He moved to the side to be able to stand up and confront them. But he happened to look to the side and into one of the crates. He found himself looking straight into the barrel of a gun. He gasped; guns were illegal in this region.

“'Old on a minute,” one of the men said. Daryn held his breath. Had they heard him? “What's this?”

“Give it me. . . It looks like a medallion.” His pendant! “'Arry must'a left it. 'E always has knicks about 'is knacks about 'im.”

“I'll have to 'emember to give it to 'im” Daryn looked through the slats in the crate and saw one of the men put it in the breast pocket of his jacket. The other man laughed and there was more sloshing sounds.

“You're likely as not to ferget you even put it in your pocket.”

There were footsteps on the ceiling above them. The men fell silent. “Mark? Corey? Dan? Any yous here?” There was silence for a moment before the footsteps went up the stairs again. The men corked the bottle and hastily put it away. They were silent as they extinguished the light and left. When their footsteps could no longer be heard, Daryn came out of hiding.

Smugglers? In this ship? The first mate involved? What was going on? Daryn grimaced. He was not going to like what he had to do.