“Whoa! Not so fast, pretty boy. Ain’t we forgetting something?”
The air seemed suddenly still as the highwayman gestured with his chin. “What’s that you’ve got hidden under your cloak? Hoping I wouldn’t notice, maybe?”
The officer’s jaw tightened. “It’s nothing you’d be interested in.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it ain’t.” The highwayman lifted his pistol. “Let’s take a look, though, shall we?” Wordlessly, after a moment’s hesitation, the passenger lifted the edge of his cloak to reveal his right hand, holding what appeared to be a leather dispatch pouch, but unlike any the highwayman had seen before. What made it different were the flat bands of metal encircling the pouch and the fact that the bag was secured to the passenger’s wrist by a bracelet and chain.
The highwayman threw his accomplice a brief glance. His eyes glinted. “Well, now,” he murmured, “and what’ve we got here?”
“Papers,” the man in the cloak said, “that’s all.”
The highwayman’s eyes narrowed. “In that case, you won’t mind me takin’ a look, will you?” The highwayman handed the reins of his horse to his companion, and dismounted.
Walking forward, the highwayman waggled his pistol to indicate that the young man should move apart from the other passengers. With his free hand, he snapped his fingers impatiently. “Key!”
The officer shook his head. “I don’t have a key. Besides, I told you, it holds nothing of value.”
“I won’t ask you again,” the highwayman said. He raised the pistol and pointed the twin muzzles at the officer’s forehead.
“Are you deaf, man? I don’t have a damned key!”
The highwayman snorted derisively. “You expect me to believe that? Of course you’ve got a bloody key!”
The officer shook his head again and sighed in exasperation. “Listen, you witless oaf, only two people possess a key: the person who placed the papers in the pouch and locked it, and the person I’m delivering them to. You can search me if you like.” The young man’s eyes glittered with anger. “But you’d have to kill me first,” he added. The challenge was unmistakable. Kill a naval officer and suffer the consequences.
It was a lie, of course. The key to the bracelet and pouch was concealed in a cavity in his boot heel.
The highwayman stared at the passenger for several seconds before he shrugged in apparent resignation. “All right, Lieutenant. If you insist.”
The pistol roared. The look of utter astonishment remained etched on the young man’s face as the ball took him in the right eye. The woman screamed and collapsed into her husband’s arms in a dead swoon as the officer, brain shattered by the impact, toppled backwards into the mud. He was dead before his corpse hit the ground.
Holstering the still smoking pistol, the highwayman sprang forward and began to rifle the dead man’s pockets. Several articles were brought to light: a handkerchief, a silver cheroot case, a pocket watch, a clasp-knife and, to the highwayman’s obvious amusement, a slim-barrelled pistol. The highwayman stuffed the cheroot case, knife and watch inside his coat. The pistol, he shoved into his belt.
“By Christ, I’ll see you both hanged for this!” The outburst came from the tail-coated passenger, who was still cradling his stricken wife. Beside him, the parson, grey-faced, had dropped to his knees in the mire. Whether at the shock of hearing the Lord’s name being taken in vain or in order to be sick, it was not immediately apparent.
The threat was ignored by the highwayman, who continued to ransack the corpse, his actions becoming more frantic as each pocket was inspected and pronounced empty. Finally, he threw his silent accomplice a wide-eyed look. “He was right, God rot him! There ain’t no bleedin’ key!”
In desperation, he turned his attention to the dispatch pouch. His hands traced the metal straps and the padlock that secured them.
Finding access to the pouch beyond his means, the highwayman examined the chain and bracelet. They were as solid and as unyielding as a convict’s manacle. He rattled the links violently. The dead man’s arm rose and flopped with each frenzied tug.
“Christ on a cross!” The highwayman threw the chain aside and rose to his feet. In a brutal display of anger, he lifted his foot and scythed a kick at the dead man’s head. The sound of boot crunching against bone was sickeningly loud. “Bastard!”
He stepped away, breathing heavily, and regarded the body for several seconds.
It was then that he felt the vibrations through the soles of his boots.
Hoofbeats. Horsemen, approaching at the gallop.
“Jesus!” The highwayman spun, panic in his voice. “It’s the Redbreasts! It’s a bloody patrol!” He stared at his companion. An unspoken message passed between them. The highwayman turned back and stood over the sprawled body. He reached inside his riding coat.
In a move that was surprisingly swift, he drew the sword from the scabbard at his waist. Raising it above his head, he slashed downwards. It was a heavy sword, short and straight-bladed. The blade bit into the pale wrist with the force of an axe cleaving into a sapling. He tugged the weapon free and swung it again, severing the hand from the forearm. Sheathing the sword, the highwayman bent down and drew the bracelet over the bloody stump. He turned and held the dispatch pouch aloft, the glow of triumph in his eyes.
As if it were an omen, the sky was suddenly lit by a streak of lightning and an ear-splitting crack of thunder shattered the night. The storm had turned. It was moving back towards them.
Meanwhile, from the direction of the lower road, beyond the trees, the sound of riders could be heard, approaching fast.
The highwayman tossed the dispatch pouch to his accomplice, who caught it deftly. Then, stuffing his pistol into its holster and snatching the satchel containing the night’s takings from the startled coachman, he sprinted for his horse. Such was his haste that his foot slipped in the stirrup and he almost fell. With a snarl of vexation, the highwayman hauled himself awkwardly into the saddle and his accomplice passed him the reins.
Rain began to patter down, striking leaves and puddles with increasing force as the highwayman and his still mute companion turned their horses around. The sound of hooves was clearly audible now, heralding the imminent arrival of the patrol; perhaps a dozen horsemen or more.
The two riders needed no further urging. Wheeling their horses about, digging spurred heels into muscled flanks, they were gone. Within seconds, or so it seemed to the bewildered occupants of the coach, swallowed up by the night, the sound of their hoof-beats fading into the darkness beyond the moving curtain of rain.
1
It had quickly become clear to the crowd gathered in the stable yard behind the Blind Fiddler tavern that the Cornishman, Reuben Benbow, the younger of the two fighters, was far more accomplished than his opponent. The local man, Jack Figg, was heavier built and by that reckoning, a good deal stronger, but there was little doubt among those watching that Figg did not have anything to match his opponent’s agility.
The Cornishman was tall, six feet of honed muscle, with features still relatively unscathed. Having served his apprenticeship in fairground booths the length and breadth of his home county, he had been taken under the protective wing of Jethro Ward, the West Country’s finest pugilist. Under Ward’s diligent tutelage, Benbow was fast gaining a reputation as a doughty, if not ruthless, fighter.
Jack Figg, on the other hand, was square built with a face that betrayed the legacy of half a lifetime in the bare-knuckle game. A stockman by trade, it was said that in his youth Figg could stun a bullock senseless with one blow of his mighty fist, and that he had once sparred with the great Tom Cribb. But now Figg was past his prime. His body bore the scars of more than seventy bouts.