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Back The Burning Island Save as PDF
Chapters (31)
  1. COVER PAGE
  2. TEXT LOGO PAGE
  3. ABOUT THE BOOK
  4. EPIGRAPH
  5. MAP
  6. THE INDIAN
  7. MY FATHER IN THE LEAF LITTER
  8. THE MOONBIRD
  9. EMBARKATION
  10. THE WONDERS OF THE WUNDERKAMMER
  11. RODONDOINTO THE FOG
  12. SEABIRDS AND SEALS
  13. THE NIGHT, GIBBOUS MOON
  14. HUMMOCK AND THE BOTTLE-ACHE
  15. GRASS ELEGY
  16. THE CUTTER
  17. PRESERVATION
  18. ST ANTHONY’S FIRE
  19. THE BOWSPRIT ACHILLES
  20. THE SYMPLEGADES
  21. GUN CARRIAGE
  22. THE UNTHREADING OF THINGS
  23. CHRIST’S REDEEMING MISSION
  24. THE INDIAN RETURNS
  25. THE PINNACLE
  26. EMBERS
  27. FIFTEEN HUNDRED FATHOMS
  28. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  29. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  30. ALSO BY JOCK SERONG
  31. NEW MARKETING PAGE

Of course it was thus, I told myself as I took the food to her. Fear and hate subsist like stains, but paralysis only lasts so long before it is replaced by fury. In the moment of Tarenorerer’s insurgency, as the natives forgot their place, we, too, forgot ours. Then everyone had to be reminded. The men gathered in the drawing rooms of the great homesteads. Dismissed the women, spoke their minds and vented their outrage. By morning, heads sore with drink, bellies uncertain, they formed hunting parties. Workers, convicts, sons and fathers: retribution, swift and sure.

These were the dark visions I conjured as I watched the woman eat her fish. When she was done, I took her plate and she thanked me gruffly. I took the plate to the galley and then I slipped down the passageway past my father’s closed door. Into the doctor’s quarters once again.

THE SYMPLEGADES

THE SYMPLEGADES

image I woke in the small hours to the sound of the anchor chain against the hull, slid from the bed and dressed in the dark, then slipped silently from the cabin.

I had to pass my father to get to my own quarters. He slept lightly in the mornings and was an early riser, even when he’d punished himself drinking. I rehearsed again the things I would say if he stirred: that I had heard a noise at the stern and wished to alert the doctor; that I had wandered in my sleep…but he was snoring, turned away from the passage between the bunks, his streaked hair lying wild on his pillow. There was a stench as I passed him. Grog? No. Not exactly, and in any case there was no longer any on board. I had to keep moving. I went to my cabin and changed my clothes to avoid suspicion, then went above.

Tarenorerer was pacing the deck already. Dawn was far away, first light a mere suggestion in the east, but her feet padded the boards and her eyes were trained outwards. I came from the hatch behind her: she sensed my presence and looked around, cast me a dismissive glance and returned to watching the island. If I squinted, I could make out the sealers’ house: no smoke from the chimney now, no sign of movement. They could not, in any event, come after us.