One of the carved legs rested long against the hull, the other was buckled at the knee. The great thighs bulged in sculpted agony. The reaching hand was clutching at the ankle, the heel, and there the figure had been affixed to the hull by an iron arrow that passed through that heel. The doctor was taking all of this in and for some reason it seemed to unsettle him.

We came around the seaward side and the vision of the figurehead was gone. Moments later we were alongside the Moonbird and the doctor indicated with a swept hand that I should ascend the ladder ahead of him. I caught his eye: there was no trace of discomfort. I did not ask what had perturbed him so.

~

When she stood on the deck of the Moonbird, the woman became less concerned about covering us with the musket. She kept it in the crook of her arm while she assessed everything around her. Argyle, the doctor and I stood together near the rail where we had come aboard. I could see now that she had a string bag slung over one shoulder, and that it contained a handful of heavy items.

‘I need to check my father,’ I said to her. ‘He is below.’

She raised her chin just slightly, indicating the stairway. ‘Anyone else down there?’

‘No.’

‘Go on then.’ She’d recognised that the musket was too long to allow her to do anything much in the close confines of the Moonbird’s interior, far less conduct an armed search.

I went below and through to my father’s cabin. He had been sleeping: he was confused, and more so when I explained to him that we had been held up by a native woman with a soldier’s musket. He roused himself and followed me up the stairs, his dry hand quivering in mine.

The woman stood tall in the centre of the deck, her back to the island. ‘This ol man your father?’

He squared his face to the sound of her voice. ‘You have come aboard, young lady, without invitation. Might not we ask who you are?’

Her brows shot up at this; more in amusement, I thought, than anger. ‘Tarenorerer,’ she said. ‘Can you do that, eh? Ta-ren-o-rerer. Not so hard. Tommeginne my people, Emu Bay. Persecuted twenty-five years now by your lot.’

‘Are you a wife?’ my father interjected. ‘Of a sealer, I mean?’

She glared at him scornfully. ‘I’m nobody’s wife, luta tawin! This body, only thing I own, and I’ll be usin it for makin mayhem, you hear?’ Her chest rose and fell once in an angry surge of breath. ‘I’m hungry,’ she announced. ‘Make me some food, and make it good.’

~