MacKim sagged in his bonds. He did not know what time it was or how much longer he had to live. Since the rising of the sun, the morning had been an eternity of torment. MacKim was bound in the heat with no shade as the flies and mosquitoes whined around him, feasting on his blood. His head ached as if it would split, and the cords bit into his body. He remembered the death of Bearsden, swimming until his strength gave up, then drowning as the privateers stabbed at him. It was not a pleasant method of death.
Every so often, one of Douce Vengeance’s crew, or a Cuban militiaman, would pass MacKim with a taunt, a curse, or a blow, and he could do nothing but endure and hope that Dickert, at least, reached safety. MacKim had no illusions of surviving the day or that Captain Roberval would sho
