Stephanie Laurens - The Daredevil Snared

Phillipe nodded. “That’s also an easy place to describe to those in the compound.”

“And as we’re only talking of a month,” Caleb said, “two at the most, before a rescue force arrives, then even with light wrappings, the powder should still be useable.”

Norton pointed down into the compound. “There are the men bringing back the water barrels.” They watched the men haul the now-laden cart through the gates.

“The guards have returned, too,” Phillipe noted, “so from what Diccon told us, the lake should be safe for us to visit from now through the rest of the day.”

“Perfect.” Caleb glanced at Ellis. “Go back to camp and tell Quilley to take three men, wrap up the excess weapons and ammunition, and go to the lake and bury the lot behind the mound at the end of the wharf. Go with him and make sure he chooses the right spot.”

“Tell Ducasse to take two of my men and help,” Phillipe said. “More hands and it’ll be done that much faster.”

Caleb endorsed the order with a nod.

Ellis snapped off a salute and scrambled off the ledge, heading for the track down the hillside.

Caleb, Phillipe, and Norton settled to watching the compound again.

After some time, Phillipe said, “I take it we’re watching for Diccon to leave.”

Caleb nodded. “We came upon him about noon, and he’d already half filled his basket, so I would expect him to leave fairly soon.”

“I saw him go into the kitchen,” Norton said. “He helped the women take the plates and bowls back, but he didn’t come out again.”

“Ah, but there he is now.” Phillipe sat up and nodded down at the compound.

Caleb watched as the skinny figure of Diccon, readily identified by his bright mop of hair, skipped out from under the palm-thatched overhang shielding the kitchen. He was swinging two baskets, one from either hand. But instead of heading for the gates, Diccon circled the guard tower. Caleb frowned. “Why two baskets, and where is he going?”

They had their answer in another minute. Diccon went to the cleaning shed. He climbed the steps to the door and knocked. The door opened, and he waited a moment. Then he backed down the steps, and Katherine Fortescue joined him.

Caleb blinked. He watched as Miss Fortescue took one of the baskets, then, side by side, she and Diccon headed for the gates.

The guards saw them coming and didn’t react in any way; they watched the pair walk out of the compound and into the jungle.

Caleb stared at Diccon and his Miss Katherine as, heads high, they blithely marched on. Then they disappeared from view. He frowned. “That seems just a tad too good to be true.”

Phillipe looked faintly grim. “The boy said nothing about anyone else coming out with him.”

It fell to Caleb, as commander of the mission, to weigh every factor that might prove dangerous to their men. That Miss Fortescue might have told Dubois what Diccon had told her...

He didn’t want to believe it, but...he grimaced. “Let’s watch and see if anyone else follows them.”

But no one did. No one seemed to have any interest whatever in the whereabouts of the pair who had, supposedly, gone foraging.

After thirty minutes, Caleb looked at Phillipe.

Phillipe looked back and shrugged. “I would point out that women make excellent traitors, but...who knows?”

Caleb grunted. He stuffed his notebook back into his pocket, then rolled to his feet. “I don’t see Miss Fortescue as a likely traitor, but as matters stand, I can think of only one way to find out.”

* * *

By the time Katherine had put seventeen of the large nuts she’d agreed to gather for Dubois and his men into her basket, her nerves were jumping. From the moment she’d grasped the implications of what Diccon had told her regarding who he’d met in the jungle the previous day, she’d been trapped on a peculiar seesaw of emotions—vacillating dramatically between cynically weary disbelief and the burgeoning of unexpected hope. Up, then down, almost to the rhythm of her breathing.

Despite their resolution to find some way to escape, every one of the captured adults had long ago given up all hope of rescue—of someone from outside arriving to save them. As the days, then weeks, then months had rolled past, they’d lost all faith in anyone from the settlement mounting a mission to save them from the fate they all knew would ultimately befall them.

None harbored any illusions about the end Dubois and his masters had in mind for them.

But Diccon had said that the men—the mysterious captain and his crew—had come direct from London, and if Diccon had understood correctly, they were part of a long-running push to rescue all those taken.

She’d discovered that learning of a possible route to freedom after one had believed all such possibility extinguished could be unsettling. Indeed, distinctly unnerving.

She dropped another nut into her basket. Unable to resist the impulse, she cast a searching glance around, but saw and heard no hint of anyone approaching. Diccon had insisted that they had to come to this part of the jungle—between the lake and the track north—and go about collecting fruit and nuts, and then the men would come and find them.

Yesterday, once Diccon had poured out the sum of his discovery, she’d immediately seen the potential danger and had sworn him to secrecy—only to discover that the mysterious Captain Caleb had been before her. She wasn’t sure whether to be encouraged or concerned by such foresight; had he acted for the same reason she had, or had he had some ulterior motive?

Regardless, she’d immediately wanted to take Diccon to speak with Dixon and Hillsythe, the de facto leaders of the captives, but as Diccon could not go into the mine and there’d been guards hovering by the entrance, she’d had to wait until after the evening meal before she’d been able to engineer a suitably private meeting.

Dixon and Hillsythe had listened to her condensed version of Diccon’s tale, then had called Diccon over. After she’d convinced Diccon that his Captain Caleb—the only name Diccon had been given—wouldn’t mind him repeating his story to Dixon and Hillsythe, they’d taken Diccon over his report again. Hillsythe in particular—to this day, Katherine did not understand exactly what his background was—had focused on the captain; with a sense of suppressed but building excitement, Hillsythe had asked Diccon to describe the man. Hillsythe had been well-nigh transformed by Diccon’s reply; clearly in the grip of some heightened anticipation, Hillsythe had called Will Hopkins and Fanshawe over and had Diccon repeat his description of the captain to them.

“Frobisher.” Will had breathed the name, then glanced at Fanshawe. “A Captain Caleb who looks like that and who has led a crew here on a clandestine operation...that has to be Caleb Frobisher.”

His eyes alight, Fanshawe had nodded. “And if it is he...damn. This is really happening.” Enthusiasm of a sort Katherine hadn’t heard for months had colored his tone. Fanshawe had met Hillsythe’s, then Dixon’s eyes. “There really is a rescue underway.”

Despite the excitement in his eyes, Hillsythe had swiftly said, “We need to keep this to ourselves—at least until we learn more.” He’d glanced at Diccon. “You, too, Diccon.” Hillsythe had paused, then added, “As matters stand, you’re a vital cog in this, m’lad—you’re our only way of maintaining contact with those outside.”

That had been Katherine’s cue. “Actually,” she’d said, “I asked Dubois this morning if one of the women, taking turns, couldn’t be allowed to go out with Diccon. We bargained—you know how he is. But the upshot is that he agreed as a trial to let me go into the jungle with Diccon in return for me bringing back those nuts he’s particularly fond of.”