Unpleasant predicament

'Take it!'

'I do not want it.'

'You don't want it, or you won't have it?'

'Is there a difference?'

The difference, it's fair to say, eludes me at this precise moment. He's being clever. 'Well I don't mean to dampen your spirits, but it is yours and I don't want it.'

'It is not mine, it is his, and I do not want it either. It has brought nothing but trouble.' His tone is measured, but I'm certain his heart is filled with quiet rage.

'Well why take it in the first place?'

He doesn't respond, instead he binds his arms across his chest and stares grimly out to sea. His anger is understandable. I watch his straight defiant back, willing him to speak, but I know he'll say nothing further. This conversation contains all the words that have passed between us for hours.

'Look ... I'm sorry. I don't know why I said nothing. I have no idea. It's not like me. It's not the way I was brought up. My father would be ashamed if he knew and my mother ... I dare not think it. You'll be redeemed, you'll see, when we get to the Canaries they'll be there and ...' and I realise then, of course, the last thing he wants is redemption that way, because with it, comes inevitable recapture.

I consider the moment of betrayal. Captain Burroughs points at the lad with an accusatory finger and declares him a thief. I assume he's making reference to the ring, but of course he has no knowledge of the stone heart. No, he's referring to the bread. The rhy loaf I stole for the lad.

'Did you steal the bread, or was it brought for you? It is a simple question, Boy.'

There was nothing simple about the question. The lad stared at the wooden floorboards. And I ... I said nothing. Nothing at all. Not a word. I damned him with my silence.

And here we are now, in his unpleasant predicament. We three in a lifeboat tethered behind the Frontier, bucking unhappily in her wake. All three. I turn about to find Miss Burroughs in precisely the same position. A mirror image of the boy. Not speaking. Quite upright, as though seated at the edge of an abyss, staring at the stern of the Frontier, willing herself back on board.

And here I sit in the middle, with a ruby red stone weighing down my pocket, calling me to the sea.