I found the track without difficulty. It ran west towards the sea and the great streaks of forked lightning were reflected in the tumbled waters. The roar of the waves beating against the cliffs grew louder as I walked on and soon the flickering light showed me the surf boiling at the foot of Kenidjack Castle. The thunder rolled round the heavens in an almost unbroken orchestra of sound. Tumbled, broken heaps that had once been mine buildings loomed up out of the night, the stone almost white in the dazzle of the lightning. A fine mist of sea spray drove against my face, salting my lips. Old engine houses stood like dilapidated keeps along the clifftop and, between them, were piled broken heaps of crushed stone, tier on tier, like terraces. It was a devil's mockery of the hanging gardens of Babylon where not even thistle and chickweed would grow.
Then, black against a flash of lightning, I saw a building that was whole and intact. It was a gaunt, ugly building standing foursquare to the winds that roared across the top of the cliffs. It was there for an instant, outlined against luminous clouds and still more luminous sea. Then it was gone, swallowed up in the inky blackness that followed each flash. I saw the house next against a crackle of lightning far off along the horizon. It was nearer and seemed to crouch like some animal bunched to withstand the impact of the storm. Then suddenly a great flare of lightning split the sky right over my head. The jagged rent of crackling light sizzling in a single streak to stab the hills inland. The thunder was instantaneous. The clouds seemed to split with light and sound at one and the same time. And in that vivid flash I saw the windows of the building shine, cold and dead, like a blind man's eyes. The face of the house was black with a weather coating of pitch. Beside it was the remains of a garden, a poor broken thing of hydrangeas and foxgloves all choked with thistles. There were several little fruit trees, too — gaunt, wasted things whose branches flared away from the wind as though in mad flight for shelter.
With that splitting crash of thunder, the heavens seemed ripped open. The rain swept down in a solid, sodden curtain, driven in flurries by the wind, which now blew in heavy gusts. I ran, stumbling, to the door of the building and beat upon it. A flash of lightning showed me two lines of writing above the lintel. Several coats of more recent paint had flaked away to reveal the old lettering. In the next flash I was able to read it, 'James Nearne, licensed to sell wines, spirits and tobacco.'
Nearne. James Nearne. It was a strange coincidence. Nearne wasn't such a common name. Nor, for that matter, was Cripples' Ease. A gust of wind blew a chilling sheet of rain against me. I lifted the latch and threw myself against the door. It was locked. There was no knocker so I beat upon it with my fists. But the sound of my knocking must have been lost in the roar of the storm for nobody came. The water was pouring off the slates on to my neck in a steady stream. I flattened myself against the door, rattling at the latch. The rain was seeping through to my underclothes. I felt damp arid chilled. In the incessant flicker of the lightning the rain showed like a dull tin-plate curtain. Violent gusts drove it across the broken mine workings and beat it into the sodden ground.
I turned the collar of my jacket up and splashed my way round the walls of the house. At the back a chink of light glimmered from a curtained window. I sloshed through more puddles and grasped the sill. The rain beat against the window, washing in solid water down the panes. Through the chink I looked in upon a small, low-ceilinged room lit by lamplight. The walls were of a brown, glossy paint and that had peeled away in places to show a gay powder-blue underneath, or had disintegrated so completely with age and neglect to reveal the mouldering white of old plaster. A cheerful fire blazed in a cheap Victorian grate.
It was not the room that attracted my attention but the man seated behind a big desk near the fire. He was broad in the shoulders and powerfully built. His head was small and rather square, the skin dark and lined with little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and he had a moustache. Above a rather high, lined forehead his short hair stood up almost straight. This and his high cheek bones gave him the appearance of a character from Grimm. He was talking to somebody I could not see and at the same time counting notes from a thick wad oft the desk. At his elbow was a bottle and a glass full of some yellowish liquor. Beside the desk, against the wall, stood a big safe. The door of the safe was open.
Had I known who the other occupant of the room was I should not have tapped on that window. I should have stepped back into the deluging blackness and tried to find my way back to the inn. One glimpse of the other occupant of that room would have told me the sort of set-up I was getting mixed up with. That would have been enough for me. I'd have cleared out.
But I could only see the one man. I could see he was talking to someone. But I couldn't see who. And because I was wet through and cold and this was the place Dave had told me to come to, I tapped on the window. The man at the desk looked up. His eyes had narrowed and his head was cocked a little on one side. He had stopped talking and was staring straight at the window. I tapped again with the tips of my nails.
The effect was instantaneous. The man jumped to his feet, swept the bundle of notes into the safe, whisked the bottle in as well and closed the door. He said something to the person I could not see, at the same time throwing the contents of his glass into the fire which blazed violently. Then he stepped across to the window and pulled back the curtain. Our faces were about a foot apart with the streaming glass of the window panes between us. His eyes were excited, almost wild-looking. 'Who are you? What do you want?' His voice was faint.
'I want to speak to Captain Manack,' I shouted back.
'I'm Captain Manack. What do you want?' he sounded suspicious.
'Dave Tanner sent me,' I said.
I saw him start. The man seemed strung up. Or was it that he had been drinking?
'Can you let me in?' I shouted. 'It's wet out here.'
He hesitated. I fished in the pocket of my jacket and produced Dave's lighter, holding it up for him to see. 'Dave told me to give you this,' I called.
He peered at it with a quick, bird-like glance. Then he nodded. 'Go round the back and I'll let you in,' he said and dropped the curtain.
After staring into that lamplit room, the sudden darkness was indescribably black. As I turned from the window a gust of rain lashed my face. It seemed to beat upon my bare body, so sodden had my clothes become. I shivered and stood still, for it was too dark for me to move. Then a blinding sheet of lightning showed me a line of outbuildings jutting from the house. As I made for them a door opened and Manack stood there with a lamp in his hand.
He shut the door behind me. I was in a stone-flagged scullery, and though it was cold, I felt the instant relief from the fury of the wind and rain outside. He held the lamp higher and peered at me. He was quite a short man. His size accentuated the breadth of his powerful shoulders. His eyes glittered in the uncertain light. 'You're not one of the crew of the Isle of Mull are you?' he said.
I shook my head.
'I thought not.' And then: 'Why did Dave send you? And how is it you know his real name?' His voice was sharp, almost a bark. It expressed nervousness and excitement, and the habit of command.
'He said you had a job for me,' I explained. 'I'm a miner. He said it was a mining job.'
'Oh,' He nodded as though that explained everything. 'You're from Italy. A deserter. Yes, he told me about you.' He said it quite matter-of-factly as though being a deserter were a profession. 'Just arrived, have you?'