"Muck about, my ass. We gotta get this thing working. Up, up, and away, and off this stupid island. And fast."
"Why such urgency?" His eyebrows arched above the rims of his spectacles. "Hey – have you forgotten about those Godly Army characters? It's not gonna take 'em long to get their courage back up, and come around here to hand our butts to us. Those kinda guys – they're fanatics – they don't give up. And they wanted to kill us before – what kinda mood do you think they're gonna be in, the next time?"
In truth, I had forgotten about our former captors, so great had been my relief at finding myself still alive and in one piece on this island.
Aroused from slumber by our voices, Miss McThane picked her way through the rubble to join us. "What's all the shouting about?"
Scape's thumb indicated the device. "We're gonna fly off the island. In this."
"Neat-o." With no sign of trepidation, she grasped one of the struts and waggled it through its groaning motions.
"But surely," I protested, "there must be some other means of leaving this place."
"Like what? You can't swim to the mainland – it's too far. And the currents around here are murder; I looked at the captain's charts back when we were on the ship. And there's no wood on this flippin' rock, so we can't build a boat. No, man; this is the only way." Scape patted the rusty metal. "Up into the wild blue yonder."
The more confident he sounded, the more my heart filled with dread. "But – the wings… the fabric has all rotted away. What do you propose covering them with?"
Scape dismissed my objections with a wave of his hand. "No problem. We're surrounded by the woolly bastards, aren't we? Sheepskin, man; we just skin 'em and pop it on to the frame here."
Miss McThane laughed. "This oughta be good. You're really hot with a knife and a sheep."
He glared at her for a moment, then turned back to me. "Nothing to worry about," he said reassuringly. "You'll see."
The awful premonition mounted in my breast that I would indeed.
I left Scape to his work upon the supposed flying device my fear of it having reached the point where I could not bear to lay a hand upon it – and wandered down to the shoreline where I had awoken after the wreck of the Virtuous Persistence. Perhaps some article of value, a portion of the ship's stores undamaged by the saltwater, had washed up on the rocks and could be used to supplement our bleak diet of mutton.
A few scraps of wood lay on the sands – the bulk of the ship, holed by the violent action of the seaweed gathering apparatus, had apparently gone to the bottom, beyond our reach. I poked among these until I heard a familiar voice call my name.
The Brown Leather Man stepped out from behind a sheltering line of stones. He grasped my arm in both his hands, this gesture of good will transcending any gulf of nature between our races. "Much gratitude I owe you," he said. His voice thickened with emotion, though the stitched covering over his face remained impassive.
"For what?" I said, puzzled. After all, it had been he who had saved me, and the others, from execution at the hands of the Godly Army.
"The children. Of my blood. Safe they are, and growing." He stretched his arm out towards the ocean, where the beds of seaweed lay.
"Oh. Yes, indeed. Yes, I imagine you must find that most gratifying." He seemed to overestimate any responsibility I might have had for this happy event; I could see no reason to correct him on the point. "Um… a, uh, certain concern has sprung up among my companions and myself. I was wondering if… perhaps… you could be of some assistance regarding the matter."
"Hm?" He made a slight noise, more from courtesy than any attention to me. His gaze remained focussed on the sea, his thoughts obviously far away.
"Yes, we were concerned about the wisdom of staying for very long here on this island. After all, there are some people about who seem to bear a marked hostility towards us, and we thought-"
"Do not with thoughts of those others disturb yourself." His chin sank on to his chest. "It is my undertaking – in gratitude – to protect you from them."
"Oh. Well; very good of you, I'm sure." I mulled over how best to broach my suggestions. "Perhaps – it struck me, you understand – perhaps that might best be accomplished if we were to… find a way off the island. Over to the mainland, that is. Perhaps if you could bring us a boat, or alert someone on the mainland as to our presence here, and they could come for us-"
He was deep in his contemplations, barely conscious of me standing beside him. "All in good time," he said abstractedly. "These things will be done."
Our brief conversation at an end, he returned to the sea.
The next few weeks settled into a pattern. Our island captivity continued; I scanned the horizons from the highest Groughay cliffs, anxiously awaiting the return of the Godly Army to finish their interrupted task; Scape, with Miss McThane as his assistant, laboured on the purported flying machine. He had unearthed a cache of tools and auxiliary parts, wrapped in oilsoaked cloth to protect them from the weather, which greatly facilitated the project: chains worked around the teeth of what were determined to be the appropriate gears, and the metal armatures no longer grated through the years' accumulations of rust. The taste of mutton became sickeningly familiar to all of us, but there was at least a plenitude of it. A growing section of the castle ruins began to resemble a charnel house, with the bloody skins of sheep draped about on the stones. Only the chillness of the northern air prevented rapid decomposition; Scape's methods of preparing the hides were marked by a crude haste and a complete lack of any appropriate knowledge; many of the poor animals' heads lolled, still attached to their skins, the dumb eyes seeming to wonder how such indignities had been visited upon them. The living sheep divined Scape's cruel attentions towards them, and became increasingly difficult to catch; the dog Abel, with his terrier cleverness, soon became expert at turning back the fleeing herds and driving them into Scape's clutches.
My vigil upon the cliffs was ended the morning after a particularly severe storm. All night long, the stone walls of the castle ruins were lashed by driving rain; a section of the remaining roof was torn away by the gale. As Scape inspected the machine to see what damage had been done to it, I went to see if the storm had brought anything of value to land.
From my vantage point, I could see the waves rolling in, thick with tangled seaweed; the tempest had raged through the offshore beds. As I looked over the churning rocks, an unearthly cry of despair sounded up to me, the wail inarticulate in its anguish. I knew whose voice it was, though I had never heard it torn by any such emotion. The loose stones grated under my boots as I scrambled down the path to the point from which it had come.
I found the Brown Leather Man upon his knees at the edge of the lapping water. The sand was covered with the thick drapings of seaweed. His hands were thrust deep Into the dark foliage, lifting it to his gaze, the salt-water running from his arms.
He made no response as I touched his shoulder stepped closer to him, to see what spectacle bound him in such fierce regard.
Dead things twined in the seaweed.
A sob broke from the Brown Leather Man's throat as he tilted his head back to face the blank sky. I could see the tiny forms, monstrously misshapen, idiot piscine skulls, innards everted and exposed. The storm had not killed them, but only brought their twisted corpses to view. The blood with which he had mixed his own had degenerated too far; the seed he bore could father only such abortions as these, when mated with the crossbreeds' wretched line.