Free Rapture of the Deep: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of Jacky Faber, Soldier, Sailor, Mermaid, Spy by L. A. Meyer Page A

translated into French, even."
    "Well," says Amy, "my family is quite mortified, you'll be glad to hear. It's not done, you know. One such as I to publish, I mean." She writes down another few words and sniffs a ladylike sniff. "If the literary establishment will not publish my poetry, then it will have to put up with my ... prose efforts."
    I knew that Amy had sent a sheaf of her poems to a Mr. Thomas Wentworth, the editor of a high-toned Boston literary journal, and he sent them back saying that she "ought not publish," for various reasons, chief of which was that she was a young girl of gentle birth and because of that her efforts could not possibly be up to snuff. Last week I was at my local bookseller's on Cornhull Street and I managed to find some of Mr. Wentworth's writing. I can tell you one thing—Thomas Wentworth may be a fine and righteous Abolitionist, but as a poet, he ain't a patch on Amy Trevelyne's snowy white drawers.
    "Your very purple prose efforts, Sister," says I, squirming deeper into the wonderfully warm hay. "And speaking of marriage prospects, quality or not, how are things between you and our fine Mr. Pickering?"
    She blushes, but before she can say her usual "I am not ready for that sort of thing right now," there is a bit of a bustle down below, and whose head should pop up at the edge of the loft but that of Ezra Pickering himself.
    "And what do we have here?" he asks, smiling his secret little smile. "Two dewy country maidens taking their ease in the new-mown hay. How charmingly rustic. May I join them?"
    I laugh and say, "Ah, yes, just two simple milkmaids are we. Come on up." I glance at Amy and see that she is not at all displeased at Ezra's arrival. Not at all ...
Hmmm ...
    He sits down next to Amy. "Can I hope to be invited to dinner, Miss Trevelyne, since I came all the way here?"
    "You may, Mr. Pickering," she says.
    But I take it further. "You have news, Ezra, else you would not be here."
    "That is true, Miss Faber," he says, dusting some chaff off his perfectly tailored sleeve. "HMS
Dolphin
has docked at Long Wharf and your presence there tomorrow has been ... how shall we say ... 'requested.'"

Chapter 12
    It was Solomon Freeman who brought Ezra Pickering over to Dovecote in the Morning Star yesterday, and it is he who brings me back in her today.
    "I am honored that the great Lord Othello deigns to convey my poor self back to Boston," I tease, leaning back against the gunwale, watching him trim the sail and tend the tiller. I note that he has become quite expert in small-boat handling since last I saw him, and I compliment him on it. "How good of His Lordship to come all the way across Massachusetts Bay just for me."
    Solomon laughs and adjusts the sail a bit, steering a course for the Boston docks. "Well, I may play the warrior Othello on the stage, but you, Miss Faber, are still the boss of Faber Shipping here in the real world, and so I will come pick you up anytime you want me to."

    Higgins and I had taken in the play several nights ago and Solomon was magnificent—every inch the victorious general in the beginning, every bit the broken man brought down by treachery and his own jealousy at the end. Mr. Bean plays Iago, and for the duration of their play, I hate him.
    It caused a bit of a scandal in Boston, of course, but it shouldn't have—a black actor playing a black character, what could be more natural?
    After the final curtain, I joined the cast for a bit of carousing at the Pig and Whistle and got in quite late, but it was good to see Messrs. Fennel and Bean again, as well as Chloe Cantrell, my friend and Faber Shipping's part-time secretary.

    Yesterday, in a little side office at Dovecote, Ezra and I had some time to go over the affairs of Faber Shipping Worldwide, he being the Clerk of the Corporation and all. We went over money on hand (not much); the state of our equipment—boats, traps, lines, et cetera; rates of pay for employees—Solomon had to