Kapitan Lewrie!" a tantalisingly familiar voice interrupted a foul musing as Lewrie's little train of waggons reached the Southern outskirts of tidy little Cape Town, almost into the first of the farms and vineyards, on the dusty road to Simon's Town. "Zdrasvutyeh!"
Oh, shit, and where's her papal1 Lewrie thought with a twinge of alarm as he reined his hired mare and wheeled her slowly about, to see the equally familiar spirited white gelding loping to catch up with his caravan. Eudoxia Durschenko was beaming fit to bust as she easily and athletically "posted" in her stirrups, heels well down, and back just as straight and erect as a fence-post as she came near.
"Is good be seeink you, again, Kapitan Lewrie!" Eudoxia gaily called out as she reined in her horse to a walk, patting his neck as he tossed his proud head and snorted in frustration that his fun was over. "Ve have not see you at circus or theatre, since comink here, pooh, fine Engliski kapitan. Where you are goink wit' ox and waggon?"
That had been the first surprise; "cousin" Andries de Witt had refused to risk his precious dray horses, as big as English Punches, to haul that much weight, and had supplied six oxen to each long and narrow, pink-ended waggon, that rose up so high at "bow and stern" that they resembled Yankee dorys, and a round dozen oxen as the team for the timber waggon, which was little more than two sets of wheels as tall as a man, and a stout frame linking them together.
"Mistress Eudoxia… enchante!" Lewrie responded in an equal gayness, and doffed his newly-purchased wide-brimmed farmer's hat to her. "You keep well… you and your father?" he asked, not taking it for granted that the surly bastard wasn't lurking somewhere over the next rise, or skulking behind the last house but one to spy on her. "As to where I'm going, we're off to salvage a new rudder for my frigate, to replace the one the French shot up."
"Da, and it was so brave of you, Kapitan, to save us from the Fransooskie, las' week!" Eudoxia quite prettily gushed as her gelding came up alongside his mare, 'til they were riding knee-to-knee. And a rather slim and attractive knee it was, for Eudoxia, paying no heed to prim Dutch Boer proprieties, was wearing a pair of green moleskin breeches, only slightly less snug than the skin-tight ones she wore in her performances, black-and-tan knee-high riding boots, and was, gasp!, shamelessly astride her saddle. And if Eudoxia had made an attempt at "propriety" by wearing a loose linen shirt tucked into those breeches, with a loose and unbuttoned tan suede waist-coat over it, the shirt's collar was unbuttoned nearly all the way down the placket. To top off her outre ensemble, she had chosen a light grey, wide-brimmed hat with perhaps her one and only gesture towards proper femininity, for it was flounced with long, trailing ribands, one brim pinned up over her right eye, with a long, locally-obtained ostrich plume caught in the fold.
"Our peoples is karasho, Kapitan Lewrie," she beamed. "Everythink good, everyone good, but for Poppa's best lion. He is die, eta tak groozni… prasteenyah. Sorry, it is too sad, am meanink to say. Vanya, we are thinkink he eat somethink bad for him at Saint Helena… find head of little dog in cage, then he lose appetite."
That'd explain the last complaint Treghues got from the governor's wife, aye! Lewrie thought with a wince; Exit one former lap dog, stage left!
"Find collar in throat, after Vanya die…" Eudoxia explained.
"Choked t'death on a pug and his collar, hmm," Lewrie opined.
"Vanya is oldest, grown when Poppa get him from old trainer," Eudoxia sadly continued, "not like Ilya, who is not to be trusted wit' head in mouth… 'less he is very well-feed… fed? Da, fed. Even then, Ilya is… how you say, uhm… frisky! Now, Poppa not havink lion to swallow his head!"
Well, 'twas a forlorn hope, at best, Lewrie thought, grinning.
"So now, Poppa is goink hunt for new lions," Eudoxia breezily said on, "for is best, raisink from cubs. Mister Vigmore, he is hunt for new beasts, too! Want real zebra… maybe feed donkeys to lions, at last. Ostrich, giraffee, even ele…?"
"Elephants?" Lewrie supplied, turning in surprise.
"Da, ele-funts, spasiba!" Eudoxia happily exclaimed. "Thankink you for right word. Mister Vigmore, he say 'ele-funts,' it soundink so funny… hell-ee-finks!" she told him, tossing back her head to give out a rich laugh. "Mister Vigmore beink Engliski, like you, Kapitan Lewrie, but God! He havink such stranyi accent!"
"Hallo, miss!" Some of the sailors in Lewrie's party, lolling at their sublime ease in his gear-waggons for a rare once, recognised her from her circus and theatrical performances… and from the kiss she'd planted on their captain, that last night at St. Helena. They waved their tarred straw sailors' hats and gave her a cheer. "Gonna ride t'Simon's Bay wif us, missis?"
"Simon's Bay?" Exdoxia asked.
"Down the Cape, t'other side of it, on another bay, my dear," Lewrie informed her. "There's a wrecked ship there, where we hope to obtain a new rudder, and timbers, to repair Proteus. And what of you? You're rather well-armed, I must say. Doing a spot of hunting as well, are you, Mistress Eudoxia?"
She looked down at the brace of single-barrelled pistols jammed into dragoon holsters either side of her saddle's front, the long and slim firelock in a leather scabbard under her right leg, and the bow case and tube that held at least two-dozen of her arrows. "Oh, pooh, is only to practice. A quiet place in country, where I am practicink not to disturb peoples in town. For wild beast, if one come. For the wild man, if one come, too! Corn merchant in town who sellink us feed for beasts say many dangers in Africa, must always be ware. Rifled, see, Kapitan}" she declared, drawing her musket from its scabbard. "I buyink musket and pistols in Ph… Philadelphia, in tour in America. Mnoga… much better even than Poppa's old ones. Lighter, too. See? Try, Kapitan," she said, thrusting the rifled musket into his hands.
He swung it up and sighted down the barrel, hand well clear of the trigger or lock, for he was sure that she'd loaded it before leaving town; that would be mere caution for a young woman out riding all by herself in the wilds of Africa… which, like inland settlements in North America, began about fifty yards past the last truck garden.
It was light, and pointed well, though the comb of the stock was tailored to a slighter form, custom-made by a talented Yankee gunsmith. Glossy burled wood, lots of brass, with brass or silver inlay, about as fine as the Pennsylvania rifles that his ship had captured from an American smuggling brig in the Danish Virgins in the Caribbean, all of them top-grade presentation models sent as gifts or bribes to the rebel ex-slave leader Toussaint L'Ouverture and his senior generals.
"Magnificent!" Lewrie told her, handing it back. "A match to a rifle I took in
the Caribbean. And, I've a breech-loading Ferguson as well, ever seen one? We should have a shoot, so you may try them… though I'm certain you'd out-shoot me without even trying."
"I would like that, Kapitan Lewrie! You thinkink you are good shot?" she teased as she slid the rifle back into the scabbard.
"Uhm… passing fair, I s'pose," Lewrie said with a grin, and some false modesty. "Potted pirates in the China Seas at two hundred yards with my Ferguson."
"Wing-shot?"
"Give me a decent fowling piece, and I can fetch home a decent bag," Lewrie chuckled. "Though, up the Mississippi, I did manage to knock down ducks and geese on the wing, with an air rifle!"
"Schto?" Eudoxia gaped, leaning away in her saddle. "Wit' air rifle? I am seeink one, in gunshop in Portugal, but never am shoot!"
"I'd let you," Lewrie teased back.
"Ooorah!" she whooped, startling both horses. "Uhm, skolka vremene, pardon… how long it take you to be goink to this Simon's Bay?"
"Two days each way," Lewrie said, unconsciously gritting teeth at the thought that horses would have been much faster. "Perhaps two or three more to fetch what we're after, so… call it almost a week, together. Oh, but you'll be off hunting, by then, I'd expect."
"Nyet, "Eudoxia said with a silvery laugh. "No, Kapitan. Men go hunt, but sailors and girls stay in Cape Town. We do circus, but soldiers have seen, Gallandya… Dutch peoples have seen, and plays in Engliski make no sense to them, so… we are finish performances. Mister Vigmore puttink hunt t'gether. Kapitan Veed lookink after us 'til they come back, ponyemayu} See? Poppa say huntink lion in wild Africa no place for girl, hah! Say I stay on ship wit' Kapitan Veed, but Moinya, big sweety," she said, patting her gelding's neck in affection, "mus' not go stale, mus' ride him, every day. Moinya is for to say in Engliski 'Lightning,' da}"
"And a cracking-fine horse I'm sure he is," Lewrie praised her, "one worthy of his name. So… when does the hunting party leave?"
"Oh, not for week, at least, Kapitan Lewrie," Eudoxia told him, with a mischievious glint in her large amber eyes almost as playful as his own, and prettily lowering her lashes at him. "Vigmore is talk to… Boers, what you call them… trekboers, who are knowink country, ev'ry stitch! Havink waggon trains like yours, wit' ox teams, wit' a band of Black drivers, like yours, too! Mister van der Merwe, one is called, he havink cutest little Black fellows who drive his oxes! I am thinkink they call them… Hottentots! Like doll peoples!"
"Well, we should be back, by then," Lewrie off-handedly said. "Perhaps we could… once my ship is repaired, o' course, ride out to the back-country and have ourselves a shooting contest."
"Oh, would be bolshoi! Would be grand, Kapitan Lewrie! And… may-be…" Eudoxia posed girlishly, shyly, all but biting her lower lip and drawing out that tentative, suggestive word, "you showink me grand Engliski frigate, da} Then, we have shootinks. Race horses or hunt little beasts, not lions! Take picnic basket…"
"Why, what a delightful idea, and thankee for suggestin' that!" Lewrie cried, his baser humours well-stirred, by then. And, with yer pesky poppa off gettin bit half t'death by flies, too! he thought in glee; And, damn my eyes, but, for playacting so doe-eyed innocent, /swear there's an eager vixen in her nature!
"We're to 'break our passage' at an inn that our guide, Mister Goosen, knows, up ahead, Mistress Eudoxia," Lewrie further suggested. "Care to ride with us and dine with us?"
"Oh, so sorry, Kapitan" Eudoxia said with sudden pout, "but, I am promisink Poppa I not ride far, give hour I must return. Spasiba, for invitation, but I mus' go. I makink it up to you, in a few days?" she hinted with an enticing chuckle, in a throaty, promising way.
"Then I will be looking forward to that most eagerly, Mistress!"
"Pooh, Kapitan." Eudoxia pouted some more. "Mistress Eudoxia, always Mistress. So stuffy, da? Is Eudoxia, please? You are Alan, not Kapitan. Beink very good, maybe I sayink 'tiy,' not 'viy. 'How you say… un-formal? Unner-stan'?"
"Completely," Lewrie told her with glad leer, stunned by that allowance, and half-strangled by the implication.
"Dosvidanya, Alan," she cooed, leaning over from her saddle to plant a chaste kiss on his cheek and put a hand in the small of his back. Before he could respond in kind, though, she gave out a whoop and put spurs to her horse. She whipped away, to go cantering down the length of Lewrie's motley caravan to its very head, spin round before the ox team of the first waggon, and come galloping back along the far side of it towards town. " Sh-chastleevavapooti! Paka! Have good trip, Alan! See you!"
God in Heaven! Lewrie thought; And just how long'1l it take for Wigmore and her poppa t'hunt down their lions, elephants, and such?