They kept moving south, and when he judged that it was about three in the morning they came to the sandy end of one of the jungle footpaths they'd been following, stepped out from under an awning of palm fronds, and saw that they were on the beach. Between them and the blackness that was the sea were the faintly starlit blobs of buildings; Shandy thought he recognized the Maritime Law and Records Office, but he couldn't be sure. They walked forward to the beach, and then continued moving south, staying in the shadows of buildings as much as possible and getting across streets and open squares as quickly and quietly as they could. A few lamps glowed in buildings they passed, and a couple of times they could hear drunken voices not too far distant, but nobody hailed them. They passed several docks and clusters of beached boats … but each time Shandy crept closer to look for a stealable boat, there was a stray lantern-gleam or whispering voice nearby; and twice on the night breeze Shandy heard the unmistakable metallic click-and-slide of a sword being loosened in its scabbard, and once he heard a dockside voice whisper a sentence in which the name "Shandy" figured emphatically. Having failed to keep him from entering, the British authorities obviously did not mean to let him get out.
More cautiously than ever, Shandy and Beth walked on southward, passing the last of the stone buildings, then tiptoeing through an area of bamboo shacks and sailcloth tents, and finally, as the stars were fading, they reached a stretch of broad marshes along which the occasional turtle pen or fisherman's shack was the high point of the landscape. The mosquitoes were much worse here, making it necessary for the two fugitives to tie bands of cloth across the lower halves of their faces to avoid inhaling the insects, but Shandy appreciated the loneliness of this stretch of beach, and, no longer having to be perfectly silent, he began taking longer strides.
Just at dawn they found a decrepit pier with a sailboat moored at the end of it, and Shandy stared for several minutes at the half-dozen ragged men huddling around a small brazier—he could see pinpoints of red light in it when the erratic breeze fanned the coals—and then he relaxed and sat back down behind the bush that concealed him and Beth from the shore below.
"Just fishermen," he whispered, mostly to himself, for Beth had drifted off into another of her somnambulistic trances. He had draped his compass-weighted velvet coat around her shoulders hours ago, and he shivered in the dawn sea breeze when he stood up and then laboriously hauled her up to stand swaying and blank-eyed beside him. "Come on," he said, leading her forward and touching his baldric to make sure the weight of all the gold scudos was still there. "We're going to buy us a boat." He knew the two of them would be a strange spectacle with which to confront these fishermen on a chilly winter dawn—an evidently sleep-walking woman in a nightdress and velvet coat escorted from the jungle by a mud-splashed, blood-stained man in formal dress, both their faces smeared with mud — but he was confident that half a dozen of the gold coins would allay all misgivings. By the time they had slid down the slope and begun shambling through the sand toward the pier, most of the hunched figures had turned to stare at them, though one man, wearing a weathered straw hat and wrapped in a blanket, continued to sit on the end of the pier and face the newly sun-tipped gray waves.
Shandy smiled and held six scudos forward in the palm of his gloved hand as he led Beth Hurwood out onto the echoing boards of the pier …
Then his smile faltered and disappeared, for he had noticed the flat, filmed eyes in the gray faces, and the bound-up jaws, and the sewn-shut shirts and the bare feet.
"Oh, damn it," he whispered hopelessly, realizing that neither of them had the strength to run—it was all he could do to continue standing. With no surprise he watched the figure at the end of the pier get to its feet, shed the blanket and toss away the hat so that the dawn sun gleamed on the bald scalp. The man took the cigar out of his mouth and smiled at Shandy.
"Thank you, Jack," he rumbled. "Come, my dear." He beckoned to Beth and she stumbled forward as if pushed from behind. The velvet coat slipped off her shoulders and fell onto the weathered planks of the pier.
Almost at the same moment, Shandy's knees unlocked and he found himself abruptly sitting on the planks. "You're dead," he muttered. "I killed you … on the stairs." Beth took two more quick, balance-catching steps.
The bald man shook his head sadly, as if Shandy was proving to be a disappointing pupil. He puffed on the cigar and waved its glowing head at Shandy. "Come on, Jack, don't you remember the slow matches I used to braid into my hair and beard? Low-smoldering fire, that's the drogue that holds Baron Samedi's protective attention. A lit cigar works just as well. Your blade stuck me, sure enough, but the Baron, the good old Lord of the Cemeteries, repaired the damage before I had time to expire." Beth was swaying halfway between them now, and the sun made her hair gleam like fresh-sheared copper. Shandy scrabbled at the wood and the tail of the coat, trying to find the strength to stand up again.
"But I don't hold grudges," the giant went on, "any more than Davies did, when you cut him. I'm grateful to you for escorting to me my bride—the only woman in the world who has shed blood in Erebus—and I'd like you to be my quartermaster."
Tears dripped from Shandy's squinting eyes onto the weathered planks. "I'll see you in Hell first, Blackbeard."
The giant laughed, though his eyes were now fixed on the slim, approaching figure of Beth Hurwood.
"Blackbeard's dead, Jack," he said without looking away from the woman. "You must have heard. It's been absolutely verified. I need a new nickname now. Baldy, maybe." He laughed again, and his motionless dead mariners did too, whickering like sick horses through their nostrils. Shandy had been unthinkingly pulling the velvet coat toward himself, and now he felt a hard lump in it. He slid his hand into the pocket, and by touch recognized the brass-rimmed, glass-topped disk—it was the compass he'd bought. His heart began pounding, and with what he hoped was a convincingly despairing moan, he fell face down onto the pier, over the coat.
The giant reached out a hand toward Beth.
Shandy pulled the compass out of the pocket and then fumbled at it helplessly for a moment—he had nothing to break the glass with!
Blackbeard touched Beth Hurwood, and the air seemed to twang, as if the roof of the sky had been solidly struck.
Shandy opened his mouth and wedged the compass between his jaws, and then he ground them together, tasting abraded brass and feeling at least one molar implode, until he was dizzy and sick and his teeth and jaw muscles were in agony; he lifted his head and saw Blackbeard's hand on Beth's shoulder, and the sight lent him a little more strength. The glass broke under his front teeth, and, spitting glass and blood, he took the device out of his mouth, pried the compass needle loose, then drew his saber and shoved the needle in under the leather wrapping until he felt it grind against the steel of the tang. After that he placed his gloved right hand gently on the grip so that the protruding end of the needle pressed into his palm … and he squeezed the grip tightly, driving the needle deep into his hand. With a sudden flash of intuition he raised the sword over his head and yelled, "Phil!" And without having to look around he knew he was no longer alone. With aid he got to his feet, raised his sword with his dripping, pierced hand and shufflingly advanced toward Blackbeard. But, though the burly figure was starkly silhouetted against the brightening sea and sky, Blackbeard — perhaps against his will—wasn't alone anymore either. As if some kind of cosmic balance had to be maintained, Shandy's cry seemed to have summoned seconds for both of them. Shandy wasn't sure how he knew it; a sound? A smell? Yes, that was it—a smell—a faint, disagreeable mix of cologne, chocolate syrup and unwashed linen was disfiguring the clean sea air.