~ ~<br/><br/>What transpired between Jacqueline and the captain on her berthed deck was an act of passion. Under provocation of converging gulls, senses awakened by the wilderness of the island a heartbeat away, a territorial animal awoke. The violence was brief and savage as the whipping which had incited it, and by the time the combatants were separated, a steady rapier patterned the captain's linen shirt with tropical blooms of crimson blood.<br/><br/>No more was seen of Jacqueline after that, nor of Captain Baykur, who confined to her cabin under urgent care. Her howling tainted the goodwill remaining between castaway and crew, and the threats which shadowed the ladies of the<em>Charlotte </em>even onto the deliverance of dry land were grim, though the tongue which conveyed them be alien to the civilized.<br/><br/>On July 4th, the seven who remained were no longer welcome aboard the<em>Mercy, </em>and diplomacy poised to worsen if Baykur did not survive the night.<br/><br/>The promised white sand beaches of paradise were not here. Out of necessity, where the island's prickling forest sloped rocky down into foaming green water and the shoals afforded the<em>Mercy </em>purchase, timber stilts buoyed the short dock and her skeletal structures. Large wagons shaded by eaves of raw reed would take the cargo the rest of the way, but the loading of them took some time, and all of the crew's attention.<br/>"Were there any aboard the boat which preceded us?" Margaret Hotspur kept apace the laboring teams, forcing cargo to zag around her obstruction. "Castaways, like us. Like us."<br/>The answers she received were curt and indecipherable.<br/><br/>As soon as a body came to rest on the dock, the gulls closed in. More than any other, the white-winged thieves took notice of Danae. They were about her in a jealousy, slinked low like lurking vipers.<br/>"What hope I held our voyage would soon continue from this place is dim, now," said Michelle.<br/>"There is the manor up on the high hill, through the forest," said Zoe. "I intend to seek it out."