Free The Silver Swan by Kelly Gardiner Page A

world.’
    â€˜As opposed to glorious Britannia, you mean? Ruling the waves and planting her flag anywhere that takes her fancy?’
    I felt as if I’d been stopped in my tracks. ‘But —’
    My uncle stared at me with a fierceness that made me shiver. ‘You have never been to Ireland, Lily, or to India or even Gibraltar, to witness English rule. Empire is empire, my dear, whether it’s governed by a king or a committee. It’s all the same to those who are trampled in the rush. I simply wish to avoid Malta being overrun by yet another vanquishing horde. We’ve been conquered enough.’
    â€˜He’s got a point, you know,’ said Miller.
    â€˜It was the French who set the slaves free when they invaded Malta,’ Gideon reminded me. ‘I would be dead if it wasn’t for Napoleon Bonaparte.’
    â€˜You didn’t see how those French soldiers tried to kill me in the cathedral,’ I retorted.
    â€˜She’s got a point, too,’ said Miller.
    â€˜Make up your mind, you lot,’ Jem grumbled.‘Bloody Irishmen. You can’t trust ’em.’
    â€˜I take offence at that.’ Papa had appeared in the tunnel behind Ebenezer. His own two pistols were pointed straight at my uncle, whose face turned ashen before our eyes.
    â€˜You!’
    â€˜Hello, Eb,’ said Papa cheerfully. ‘Surprised to see me?’
    â€˜I knew it,’ hissed Uncle Ebenezer. ‘I felt sure you were alive. I told Lily.’
    â€˜So I heard,’ said Papa. ‘Yet now you stand in her way, aiming your weapon at her in a most ungentlemanly fashion.’
    â€˜Rafe, you of all people should understand,’ my uncle said. ‘We can’t just let the English take over the Mediterranean. It’ll be just like Ireland.’
    â€˜But sunny?’
    â€˜It’s no joke, Rafe. It could mean generations of war and misery on both sides.’
    â€˜You’re right, it’s no joke, and I’m tired of these arguments.’ Papa motioned with a pistol towards Ebenezer’s own guns. ‘Drop your weapons now and step aside.’
    â€˜And if I won’t?’
    â€˜I’ll shoot you if I must.’ Papa’s face became grim, just like in the days when he was impersonating Hussein Reis. I knew he meant what he said.
    â€˜It’s a dark day when a son of Galway bows to the English,’ said Ebenezer, in a voice at once threatening and defeated.
    â€˜If this were Galway, Eb, I’d stand by your side,’ said Papa. ‘But there’s more at stake in the worldthan these three Maltese islands. The French won’t stop until they reach India, maybe China.’
    â€˜So you think you can stop them here?’ My uncle was grinning, but not with pleasure. His face was as angry and sarcastic as it had been the first dark night we’d met.
    â€˜We can try.’
    â€˜I won’t let you.’
    They stood, glaring at each other, neither giving an inch. I worried that this might go on forever, or until one of my stubborn relatives shot the other. Somewhere a bell sounded. Half an hour to midnight. We had to hurry.
    â€˜For pity’s sake, Uncle, people are starving in the city,’ I pleaded. ‘If we don’t put an end to it, the siege will go on for years. Hundreds of Maltese people will die.’
    He shrugged again. ‘So be it. It’s far better for us to rot than succumb. The French will cave in first, when they are reduced to eating rats and dried herring.’
    â€˜You don’t really mean that,’ Papa argued.
    â€˜He doesn’t,’ I said in desperation. ‘He’s joking.’
    â€˜Lily, you should know by now that I have no sense of humour.’ Uncle Ebenezer straightened his right arm so that the muzzle of his pistol was only a few inches from my face.
    I closed my eyes.
    The gunshot was deafening.
    I fell to the ground.
    Â 
    When I opened my eyes, I