Chapter Twenty
Not Forsaken
I stumbled out onto the beach to see that half of those gathered there had already been loaded up onto the boats steered by the Whale People that had come in close to shore. We were going to get away with this!
‘Hallelujah!’ Was my prevailing thought. These people, who had been born into bondage, so deserved a chance to experience freedom.
I pushed Mandy away towards the surf, “Go get on a boat! Get out of here before something goes wrong.”
Screams rang out all along the beach where people were yet to be loaded aboard. The people in their fear backed away from the beach into the crashing of the waves, as those on the boats worked double time to bring them aboard.
I turned around to face what I knew I would find. Some thirty or more giants came walking out from the forest’s edge onto the beach. So much for the escape being a rousing success.
At least some would escape, but would those surviving giants not just use their technology to build crafts of some kind by which to hunt the Whale People down to wherever they fled to? It was the most likely scenario that would occur.
Despair loomed inside of me at the knowledge that we really hadn’t won or achieved anything of noteworthy value this day, until all these giants were dead and no longer a threat to anyone. But how to do it?
It was beyond any capability of ours to overcome such demonic aberrations personified in the flesh. It would have to be a God thing, if we were to survive.
“Oh God please help us! You brought me here and You’ve helped me deliver these people to this point and even find happiness for myself again where there was none before. Please hear my prayer and finish what You started and have helped out all along the way. I commit myself and the future of these people that you’ve tasked me to lead into your safekeeping, as I step out in faith.”
I limped out across the sand towards the approaching giants.
“Oh God do not forsake me now!” I whispered out.
“I never have and I never will.” Came a deep response into my innermost being that brought peace and the courage to potentially walk straight into my death, if it was what God had willed to be.
Something buzzed by my ear and I looked to the sound to see a hornet hovering in the air beside me. I smiled, as I remembered the stories of Israel and their conquest of the Holy Land, a land filled with giants, recorded down in the Bible so long ago for all to read. God was the same yesterday, today, and forever more.
I continued smiling, as I looked up at our formerly traitorous guide, who seemed to be the ringleader of the group. He had draped the central crystal of the Orlanis Star as a necklace about his neck.
Speaking loud enough for my voice to carry up to their lofty heights I said, “You’re not taking another step to stop these people from experiencing their freedom gifted to them from the God of heaven and earth.”
The giants looked among themselves and abruptly began to laugh so hard that it shook the air. Their leader boomed out with cruel mirth, “And who is going to stop us? You?”
“No, not me. In defiance of the natural order of creation you were made by those who fell from the heavens, who forsook their seats of righteous honor bestowed upon them by the Master of all creation. By the Creator’s hand you will be blotted out once again even as your kind was in the past.”
“Blot us out! You are mad puny human to think to overcome us! We have the strength of god’s and knowledge so infinite that your weak minds could never grasp a hold of it! We are superior in every way to you! We are the new order of the day and there will be none to stop us! We will leave this prison and reenter the world above and increase in number once again, until we overrun the planet and have consumed all of humanity, even as we corrupt them with the temptation of dark knowledge as in the days of old. We are the Rephaim, the seed of old, and our hunger for revenge has never been greater!”
“And yet I say unto you that you will be driven out as your kind was driven out of the Promise Land. God uses the weak things to confound the mighty and those who think themselves wise. The beginning of wisdom is to fear God, and yet you mock His Divine Authority. Even as you are proud and of a haughty spirit so you will be cast down to suffer an eternal ruin without any hope of a resurrection. Behold you are dead and you shall not rise!”
The giants roared in a display of hellish hatred as all mirth at my direct confrontation of them was gone.
The leader spoke, as he took a big step forward toward me, “It’s time that I feasted on your impudence little man!”
A shadow fell over the beach obscuring the orangey glow of the overhead shifting clouds for a moment. Everyone looked up to see a dark moving cloud that buzzed. Hornets. Seemingly millions upon millions of them.
They slammed into the giants like they were avenging a hive of larva that had been stepped on. The giants beat at themselves as they screamed in agony, but the stings just kept coming.
The giants stumbled and fell. They rolled on the ground and knocked their heads off tree trunks, but there was no respite from the teeming horde of winged stingers that stuck to them like glue. One by one the giants became still as they lay on the sand of the beach.
I still stood where I had been when the hornets had attacked. Not one hornet touched me or any of the former slaves still gathered on the beach behind me. Our deliverance had been a God thing and not accomplished by any act of man.
I looked among the contorted bodies that lay swelling grotesquely on the beach. Where was the leader?
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Keturah stared in open faced wonder from the deck of her catamaran. She’d seen it all now!
To think such a thing could be possible. Little pesky hornets that she could squeeze to death between two fingers had taken down giants and her man had stood firm right in the midst of it all. Pride swelled in her for the man she was blessed to belong to.
Her pride filled moment however was brutally interrupted as a giant hand came out of the water to grasp her around the middle tightly. She started to scream, but abruptly fell silent as her head smacked hard off one of the pontoons.
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I turned to face the giant covered in sting welts that trudged up out of the sea triumphantly as he held Keturah unconscious in the cruel grip of one hand. The giant looked upon his fallen brethren for a moment before glancing to me with a look of cunning.
“Think you’ve won haven’t you? You’ve won nothing! I have the power to make you question the very belief that you have in your God by simply squeezing the life out of your mate and leaving you with her mangled remains. Now that is victory! You’ll hate your God and I will have succeeded in achieving my master’s purpose of the destruction of your eternal heavenly state.”
I shook my head in denial of the giant’s words and said, “Your master is a fool to have forsook the seat of excellence that he was given in order to be as God, but you are a fool in this moment for picking the wrong girl to hold hostage.”
A tidal wave erupted behind the giant leader, but before he could turn to discover its source he stared downward transfixed in horror at the huge tusk that had gored through his middle. He screamed out in a sudden agonizing fear of death and dropped Keturah to the wet sand as he grasped at the firmly rooted tusk.
The Orlanis Star necklace pendant was pulled from his neck by an unseen hand. The central crystal that wouldn’t crack for Captain Rogers shattered into nothingness within the grasp of the unseen hand. Meanwhile the surrounding metal ring inscribed with dark thought heated up to a cherry red.
The giant’s horrified face abruptly clamped shut in terror. His mouth was yanked open by unseen forces and the red glowing metal was thrust inside as the giant’s jaw was then shut beyond any ability to ever be opened again.
The giant’s eyes bugged out of its head in a desperate plea for mercy almost too terrible to comprehend, but no mercy was given. The giant’s feet left the ground and then he went sailing out into the ocean as Dimbo twisted his snout in a hard jerk that was reminiscent of the time I had witnessed the whales playing catch with the snake head dinosaurs.
I rushed up to Keturah and kneeling down I lifted her head into my lap. Her eyes blinked open and she mumbled out, “What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about honey. You’re safe!” I said, as I held her close to me cradled in my arms. Her eyes fell back closed as her cheek rested against my chest.
She was safe! Thank God she was safe!
“Thank you Lord!” I whispered over and over even as I felt peace overwhelm me. I’d come so close to having to relive the past again and yet my worst fears hadn’t been realized. God is good!
Dimbo looked to be thoroughly beached, but with some twisting and wiggling of his large rubbery mass he managed to worm his way back into the water with the help from some gentle nudging of a second smaller whale who looked to be a female.
I got up with Keturah in my arms as Dimbo slid the rest of the way free of the sand. He headed out for deeper waters with his mate close to him, even as I held mine to me in equal protectiveness.
“Sir?”
I turned to see a large group of people come from the trees and advance onto the beach. By their dress I took them to be plantation owners.
It was a woman who had spoken. She spoke again in the cultured voice of a southern bell, “May we come with you? With the Whale People?”
I paused for a moment as to what to say. I wanted to deny the request, but where was the forgiveness in that?
“There will be no slaves where we roam or any man or woman esteemed higher than another.” I cautioned.
“We want no less than that ourselves. We never wish to return or remain in the mistakes of this place. We welcome equality, as it was always meant to be and should have been.”
I nodded, as she finished talking and then I said expansively, “Find a spot then and come along if you want. There is always room for more out on the open ocean.”
I turned then and walked out into the surf holding Keturah above the waves. Some of the former slaves and Whale People held Keturah’s boat steady, as I lifted her up and onto the netting. I pulled myself up with some helpful pushes from those gathered around and I went about seeing that Keturah was first stable and as comfortable as I could make her before I went about the business of getting under sail.
If felt good to be free of the land again, especially the land of the fabled Atlantis.
I had wanted treasure initially when I’d come to the island of Atlantis, but I’d received a Divine calling on my life instead. Now I was leaving the island for the mysteries of the sea instead and I had the greatest treasure a man could ever ask for in the form of a woman lying asleep on the forward netting. I was a blessed man and glad of it!
The Polly was offshore by itself and instinctively I knew what that meant in regards to the USS Nathaniel. I’d known something was up even before we left the lagoon when I’d seen Matt’s crew stealing extra gunpowder from Flynn’s ship.
When traveling through the forest with Mandy I’d heard the explosion that was larger than all the others and intrinsically I’d known that I’d just lost a good friend in a very noble way. That was Matt for you. Few have the choice of how they exit life, but I think Matt got his wish in that he got to go out in the flames of glory, so to speak, just as the fabled characters of history’s past had that he had studied and lectured about to classrooms of students either too bored to listen or too unimaginative to comprehend that the answers for the present can often be found in the deeds and mistakes of the past.
I pulled in beside the Polly and Jim peered down over the side at me. I wanted to be free of people and the responsibilities of leadership for a while. A honeymoon if you will, as well as the first vacation I’d had in a very long time.
“Throw me some tools down Jim.”
He nodded and disappeared for a little while. Coming back to the side he threw down to the netting just what I needed. There went Jim reading my mind again.
I glanced up to see him smile and say, “Have fun boss.”
Serena came to the railing to link her arm with Jim’s and I smiled in return, “You too, Jim.”
I shoved away from the Polly then and headed out away from the flotilla of little boats in the shadow of the ironclad that was now headed for the distant lagoon.
Soon it was just me and Keturah. The fantasy of several days ago that I’d had was coming to life in an even more vivid reality.