Buck let go of Hazel, who slid to the ground, gasping. As he advanced toward Evangeline, she saw the flash of a knife blade, the iridescent handle. Hazel’s knife. He must’ve wrested it from her.

Evangeline moved toward him blindly, swinging the pole. With his free hand, Buck reached for it, missing several times before grabbing the end and yanking it toward him, knocking her off her feet. As he came toward her she was aware of Hazel, behind him, pushing the barrel onto its side and rolling it forward with both hands. It hit him behind his knees. He lost his balance, the knife flying from his hand, skittering across the deck. Without thinking, Evangeline lunged for it, wrapping her fingers around the handle.

Buck scrambled to his feet.

Holding the knife out in front of her, Evangeline turned to face him.

“Gimme that.” He rushed toward her and she stabbed blindly in his direction, slashing his wrist and forearm as he reached for the knife. “Whore!” he spit, hunched over his bleeding arm. Blood gushed from the wound. Buck stumbled around like a wounded animal, cursing and whining, trying to stanch the flow.

“Go!” Evangeline yelled to Hazel, behind her. “Get help.”

Hazel tugged her dress down and disappeared around the bow.

Buck sank to his knees. His white shirt was soaked with blood. As Evangeline stood over him, holding the knife, it took every ounce of self-restraint she possessed to keep from attacking him again. She trembled with adrenaline-fueled rage. She wasn’t just furious at Buck; she was livid at all of the sailors and guards who treated the convicts worse than chattel. The crude catcalls and vulgar groping, the casual brutality, the arrogant assumptions of privilege—she was sick of it. And she was also, she realized, enraged at Cecil. He had merely been toying with her, using her for his own selfish ends. His delight in seeing his grandmother’s ruby on her finger had been nothing more than egotistical self-gratification, an occasion to admire his two shiny ornaments—her and the ring.

Buck was moaning now, pressing his good hand against the wound. She watched with disinterest as he nursed his arm like a little boy. Presently she heard the clatter of footsteps; the surgeon came around the corner, followed by two crewmen with muskets. They stopped, mouths agape, at the sight of this heavily pregnant woman holding a knife, standing over a blood-soaked sailor on a bloody deck.

“I’ll take that, Miss Stokes,” Dr. Dunne said, holding out his hand.

Evangeline gave him the knife, and he passed it to one of the sailors. “Take your shirt off and tear it into strips,” he ordered the other, who quickly complied. They watched in silence as he knelt in front of Buck and made a tourniquet to bind the wound. When he was finished, he sat back on his heels and turned to a crewman. “Is anyone in the hold?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Shackle him and take him down.”

Holding out his bandaged arm, Buck protested, “She stabbed me.”

“Thwarting an attack, I understand.”

Buck shrugged. “C’mon, officer. Just a bit o’ harmless fun.”

“Hardly harmless. Look at you,” said Dr. Dunne.

“I’m surprised you’re not dead,” Olive said, helping Hazel onto her berth an hour later.

“I would be, but for her.” Hazel nodded at Evangeline, propped on an elbow in her bunk.

Olive tucked the blanket around her. “Not so long ago this kind of thing was just the way it was, and nobody batted an eye.”

“Yes, it’s so civilized now,” Evangeline said.

“He’s in the hold, at least,” Olive said. “He won’t be botherin’ ye anytime soon.”

Even days later, it was hard to deny the evidence of Buck’s assault: the slight girl hobbling through her chores with the deep purple line of a bruise on her neck, one eye red and swollen, her split lip blown up like a sausage.

A sailor stepped forward to claim the pearl-handled knife, which, he said, had gone missing weeks earlier. Buck had threatened her with it, Hazel told Dr. Dunne. She’d only picked it up.

The captain sentenced Buck to twenty lashes and twenty-one days in the hold.

Some of the convicts stood on the deck with the sailors to watch the flogging. When he was brought up from the hold, Buck caught Evangeline’s eye and stared at her until she looked away.

After he was tied to the mast, she slipped from the crowd and went to the other side of the ship, trying to ignore the whistle of the whip and Buck’s anguished grunts. One day soon she would give birth to this baby, and the ship would land, and she’d serve her time, and then perhaps she could put all of this behind her. She wouldn’t be too old. She had some skills: she knew how to sew and how to read. She possessed within herself a cache of poetry, a vault of her father’s sermons. She could translate Latin and recall, at a moment’s notice, the Greek myths she’d studied as a girl. That must count for something.

She thought of those two fine ladies she’d seen strolling down Bailey Street in front of Newgate Prison, encased in corsets and silks, tethered to convention, alarmed by everything beyond the bounds of their own narrow sphere. She knew more about life than they ever would. She’d learned that she could withstand contempt and humiliation—and that she could find moments of grace in the midst of bedlam. She’d learned that she was strong. And now here she was, halfway around the world. The sheltered, unworldly governess who’d entered the gates of Newgate was gone, and in her place was someone new. She barely recognized herself.

She felt as flinty as an arrowhead. As strong as stone.

Medea, 1840

Deep in the Indian Ocean, far from land, Evangeline saw creatures she’d only read about in legends: dolphins and porpoises leaping around the prow, bottlenose whales plunging in and out of the spray in the distance. One afternoon she noticed that the water was undulating with dozens of strange, translucent beings, some resembling cut lemons, others parasols that became luminous as light faded from the sky. It was as if the ship were gliding through molten fire.

“They’re known as jellyfish.”

Evangeline turned her head. Dr. Dunne was standing beside her, wearing dark trousers and a white shirt open at the collar. “Jellyfish?” She laughed. “It’s a surprise to see you out of uniform.”

He glanced down at himself. “I’ve been in surgery. A gangrenous leg.”

“Oh dear. Did you have to amputate?”

“I’m afraid so. He waited too long, as these sailors tend to do. Think they’re invincible.”

Watching the horizon line quiver in the heat, she asked, “How is Mr. Buck?”

“Rather . . . unhappy, as you might imagine. It was brave what you did, Miss Stokes.”

“Or foolhardy.”

“Bravery often is.”

She looked up into his greenish eyes, fringed with dark lashes.

A voice from behind them said, “Excuse me, sir.”

Dr. Dunne turned quickly. “Yes, sailor?”

“A convict is in labor and appears to be having a hard time of it. Can ye come?”

It was Olive. Hours later, long after the women had been bolted in for the night, Evangeline could hear her cries.

The next morning, after breakfast, she and Hazel paced the deck.

“It’s taking too long,” Hazel said.

“Do you think you could help?”

“I don’t know.”

Olive’s snaggletoothed sailor passed them, swigging from a bottle of rum.

A cry pierced the air.

“Maybe I could,” Hazel said.

“Let me ask.” Evangeline hurried to the ladder and descended into the gloom of the tween deck. A sailor standing outside the surgeon’s room moved to block the door.

“I need to see Dr. Dunne,” she said.

“You’re a convict.”

“Evangeline Stokes. Number one seventy-one. Will you let him know I’m here?”

The sailor shook his head. “No convicts allowed.”

“It’s urgent.”

The sailor looked her up and down. “You’re about to . . . ” He motioned at her belly.

“No, no,” she said impatiently. “Just—please. Tell him it’s me.”

He shook his head. “He’s busy, can’t ye tell?”

“Of course I can tell. I have someone who can help.”

“I’m sure the good doctor has things under control.”

“But—”

“Stop wasting me time.” He waggled his fingers to ward her off. “You’ll be seeing him soon enough.”

The day became interminably hot. Steam rose from the newly washed deck as if from a griddle. Hazel opened the Bible, mouthed some lines, closed it. Evangeline worked on her baby quilt, trying to concentrate on the stitches.

Olive’s cries lessened, then stopped.

Evangeline looked at Hazel. She wore a grim expression and was knitting and unknitting her fingers.

They didn’t speak. There was nothing to say.

The sun slid down the sky, its reflection puddling on the water before seeping underneath, like liquid on a porous surface. When the convicts were herded below decks, Hazel and Evangeline hunkered down in the stern, behind the wall of chicken crates.

A passing sailor, seeing them in the shadows, did a double take. “Hey, you two. They’re locking up.”

“We’re waiting for the surgeon.” Evangeline clutched her stomach. “I’m—I’m due.”

“Does he know you’re here?”