Roman sword laying. He left it lay.”
Outside, rain began to fall. Our boat rocked quietly upon the water, feeling
only the gentle swell, an afterthought of the waves outside. Even the sea sounds
were muted here in this vast, domed cavern, and we heard only the lap of water,
the murmur of our own voices. Yet we could see from the cavern mouth, and could
watch for ships.
Would she come? Had they received my message? Were they free to come, or had
they been taken and imprisoned, too?
A slow hour passed, and I knew it was but the beginning, for we might wait many
hours, even days.
Slowly the hours drew by. We took turns sleeping, yet kept a watch from the
cavern mouth where we could not be seen. Visibility was poor, and we would not
have much time.
Waves broke against the rocks, snarled and sucked their teeth against the black
rocks. While the others slept I watched and held my sword and thought of what
lay before me.
I dozed, awakened, dozed again, yet was awake again at last to watch the sea
darken. Dipping both oars into the water I rowed the boat through the wide
entrance into open water. Waves broke furiously over sharp-toothed rocks nearby.
One huge pinnacle, already worn and ravaged by the sea, stood a grim and silent
sentinel against the wind.
Black Tom sat up, then moved to shake out the sail. He glanced at me and
grinned. “God ha’ pity on the poor sailors on such a night as this!”
Pim Burke sat up. “They’ll see us from the cliffs yon,” he warned.
“Aye, if they’re out and standing in the rain, they’ll see us, but he would be a
fool indeed who had a warm fire on his hearth to be standing on the black cliffs
looking upon the sea. A fool or a poet, I’m thinking!”
“Or a wife with a husband still out,” Pim Burke added. “My ma has watched from
such a cliff, and many a time, for sons and husband … and watched in vain,
more times than not.”
“England’s given enough of her blood to the sea,” Tom Watkins said, “time and
again. Since men first walked her shores, they have gone down to the sea and
left their hearts there, and their bones on the bottom.”
Talking had become hard with the wind upon us, and blown spray and spume in the
air, so we desisted from speech and I clung to the tiller, meeting the heavy
seas as well I could. She was a good craft that and, bad as the seas now were,
no doubt the boat had known worse. Yet as our bows were splattered with foam, I
could not think of the dead men’s skulls below, and wonder if we three might add
ours to the lot.
All the night long we fought the sea, and there was no sail against the sky, not
even a bare pole. So with dawn we put about and ran in for the cove, and it was
a bitter thing we did to make that cavern mouth at all, but make it we did,
riding the crest of a big one that took us safely over the last rocks and left
us there, just inside the mouth.
No longer was the water calm within the cavern, for the storm outside brought
great, rolling seas within, swells black and shining that rose until we feared
our mast would shatter against the roof. But of course it was not so high at
all, just in our fears.
It was no good place to be, even so. Yet such is man that soon we became used to
our lot. I broke out some biscuit and passed it about, and as we lay there upon
the rise and fall of the swells and the booming of the sea within, we chewed our
biscuit and wished for an end to the storm.
At last the wind changed, the swells became less, and once more we could see out
across the stormy sea. The wind howled like all the banshees in Ireland, but no
ship showed herself upon the sea. The long day through we watched, and when the
night came weariness lay heavy upon us, and occasionally through the broken
clouds the moon shone down.
Next day, again we fought the sea and schooled our boat to take the waves, and a
gallant craft she was. And then, with the dawn breaking clear, we saw her bare
poles black against the rising sun, rolled and tossed and smashed about, and I
knew her for what she was, the ship we were waiting for.
“There’ll be a line overside,” I said.
They watched as we drew nearer and nearer, our two courses becoming one. She was
down to just enough canvas to hold her nose into the wind, and I glimpsed at
least two men on the deck as we closed in.
“It’s her or Newgate,” I said. “And if we miss, at least we’ll lie clean upon
the sea’s bottom.”
“Aye!” Pim balanced to the roll and rubbed his palms down his shirt to dry them
for a clean grip. “Take us to her, man.”
The ship came alongside as our courses became one, and a line was tossed to us.
We took it sharply and bent it quickly to make fast; and then a ladder was over
and I glimpsed the face of Sakim—my friend the Moor.
We made fast the painter that would tow the boat after we were aboard, and Pim
took the ladder by its side and went up like a monkey and over the rail.
“Tom?” I knew he could not hear in the wind and the creaking and groaning, but
my gesture spoke.
He looked with no favor on the swinging ladder but it was no new thing to a man
who had boarded many a smuggling craft, so he grabbed the ladder, slipped badly,
then went up.
I held the end of the line I must pull to release her so she’d fall astern on
the painter. For an instant I held it, then tugged and grabbed for the rope
ladder. One foot missed, the other toe landed fair, and up the ladder I went,
banging a finger badly against the hull, and over.
When our boat fell back to the painter’s end I thought it might snap, but the
line held and she towed there behind us, a gallant craft, handsome, sturdy, and
sure. I blessed her in my mind for a good little ship, and turned to the deck
with my hand on my sword.
“You’ve no need to worry.” It was one-eyed Jeremy Ring at my side. “We got rid
of Malmayne’s gang in London. And you can thank your lady for it.”
“Abigail?”
“Aye! She smuggled them rum from the ship’s locker and we lugged them all
ashore.”
He showed me to the after-cabin. I opened it to the light, and stepped in.
She was standing there, her hands out to me, and her lips bright with a smile,
her father behind her.
With me they were at last, England on our beam, and America yonder across the
sea, and a fit lot of men with me to start a new land. If they lived. And if I
did.
We went into the cabin and Captain Tempany got to his feet from behind the table
where he had spread his charts. “Lad, lad! It is good to see you! We were
afraid, especially when they came aboard in London, and we knew them for
Malmayne’s men.”
“Are we safe?”
He looked up from under thick brows. “Have you forgotten the Queen? There’ll be
ships out for us when they know you’ve escaped.”
I had thought myself secure once aboard ship. Now my confidence was gone. But
the boat was fully crewed, with my old friends Sakim, Jublain, and Jeremy Ring.
There was also a crew of good craftsmen, to homestead the new American world.
The ship was also heavily laden with munitions.
Abigail was quiet, obviously worried. “Barnabas, if they should ever take you to
prison I do not know what I should do!”
“Go on as you have and leave the matter to Jeremy and to Tom Watkins.”
“What could they do?”
“Men have escaped from Newgate, and I think escape would be my only chance. You
see, nobody will believe the truth about the coins. It seems too much luck for
one man to have. Tell me, is my chest aboard? With the charts?”
“Yes. There are some other charts and some papers that Peter Tallis brought,
too. They say he is dishonest, Barnabas, but I like him.”
“And so do I. Abigail, if anything should happen, you go on with your father to
Raleigh’s land, and wait for me. I shall come.”
“Nothing will happen.”
She said it, but she did not fully believe it. Nor did I. I would not feel