"You will deliver the treasure to me," he said, his voice as cold as ice. "And you will have a share. Otherwise, I shall destroy you-like that!" He snapped his fingers. "You think you have a ship, but my men are aboard her, and in command.
We know you were to join her in Falmouth, so undoubtedly the treasure is there, waiting."
Falmouth? I had said nothing of Falmouth, nor had it entered my plans. My intent was to join her across the bay from where we now were, off Portland Bill.
Somebody aboard, Tempany, perhaps, or Jeremy Ring-possibly even Abigail-had let Malmayne's men believe Falmouth was the place, and an obvious one it was, too.
Abigail, perhaps, but why? She believed I could do anything, never reckoning with impossibilities or the limits of strength.
But what could we do against Malmayne's men? I knew neither how many there were, nor how armed or how cunning.
"One thing you can be sure of, Malmayne. The treasure is not in Falmouth now."
Well, that was honest enough. So far as I knew, it was still at the bottom of the Wash, no doubt beyond the reach of men. Certainly, I did not lie.
"Why should I believe you?" Malmayne persisted.
Let Malmayne believe what he wished. What I needed was a chance to escape.
I stood up. "Malmayne," I said, "let it be Falmouth then. You say you have my ship. You say I have the treasure. A little of something is better than nothing at all, so let it be Falmouth."
"Where is the treasure?"
I smiled contemptuously, and hoped I did it well. "Do you think I will tell you that? And then be dropped off a cliff with my throat slit? Falmouth it is, or nowhere, and you or your men come about me and all will be thrown to the winds."
He did not like it. Or me.
He stared at me, drumming his fingers on the table. "Betray me," he said at last, "and you will die ... when I choose to let you die."
I took up my flagon, finished my ale, and went back upstairs.
He was looking after me, smiling.
Closing the door of my room behind me, I called for Black Tom and Pim. They had disappeared.
I thought swiftly.
What must be done must be done quickly. I looked out the window, searching for some sight of Tom or Pim. There were many people about, fishermen, sailors, tradesmen, but I saw nothing of Tom and Pim.
I was turning from the window when suldenly my attention was caught by a girl tugging a two-wheeled cart, piled with bags which looked like laundry. She had stopped around the comer from the street and close under my window, and she was punching the bags into some kind of shape. As I looked down, she suddenly looked up. "Jump," she said, just loud enough for me to hear. Clutching my scabbard, I stepped to the sill, glanced left and right, then jumped. I landed easily, rolled over, and was immediately covered by a bag of laundry.
"Lie quiet now, or you'll cost me a crown."
Taking up the shafts of the cart, she began to tug it along the street, walking easily along, then turning.
I smelled the river.
She lifted one sack and looked down at me. "Ah, but you're a handsome lad! Glad it is I've saved you, although I wish you could stay about a bit. There's a boat casting loose. It has one brown sail and is called The Scamp. You'd best get aboard and go below. No need to thank me, your friend Pim did that. What a lad he is, to be sure! And a crown with it. Well, a girl can't have every day like this or she'd get no washing done at all!"
She lifted the sack. I swiftly rolled over the edge of the cart and to my feet.
The boat was there. In a few quick strides I was aboard.
I saw Pim forward, and saw him cast off, heard the complaint of a block as a sail was hoisted.
Below my eyes grew accustomed to darkness and I saw Black Tom. All three of us were safe-at least for the moment.
Black Tom Watkins looked at me, then mopped his brow. "Cold, I was! Cold, with the fear of death in me. Thank God, you came. Was it the lass?"
"Aye." I told them of Robert Malmayne. "It is nip and tuck for all concerned now, since Robert Malmayne thinks I have the royal treasure."
"You mean there's trouble still?"
"It's only begun, Tom. Malmayne and his men will try to follow. But we've a ship to take, an ocean to sail, and a new land to make our own!"
"You've an appetite," he said grimly. "I hope your teeth are big enough!"
"They'll be," I said, and felt the bow dip and the spray splatter my face, run down my cheeks. I touched my tongue to my lips. We were at sea again.
Chapter 6
The waters of Lulworth Cove were quiet. Only a few fishing boats were about.
Looking back toward the shore, I saw no unusual activity, no evidence that what had happened aboard had attracted attention.
Pim saw me looking at the hills and gestured at one. "There's a stone forest yon. Trees, or something very like them, buried long ago and turned to stone."
We slid easily through the opening and into the longer swells of the sea. This was a wide bay, and yon lay the Bill of Portland.
The Durdle Door was out of sight now, and only the high cliffs were visible. The sea was picking up. I glanced at the sky.
Tom Watkins nodded grimly. "Aye, she's coming on to blow, Barnabas, and a bad thing it will be for us. An ill wind, to be sure."
I took the tiller from him and he went forward with Pim.
The salt taste on my lips was good, and I liked the wind on my face. The place toward which we went would be no easy place to find, and a dangerous one with cliffs and rocks close aboard. Yet it had to be.
How long our wait would be I could not know, but we must wait, and watch, and hope that the ship would not pass us by in the night and storm. Chesil Beach lay off to the west of us, a curving, shelving beach of gravel and sand, of pebbles rolled up by the sea; and no more dangerous stretch lay along the coasts of England than that innocent-seeming shore.
Good ships had been lost there, and not a few of them either. Good ships, and good men aboard them, their bodies washed up and left by the sea. After every storm a man could find old coins, old timbers, all manner of odds and ends back to the time before the Romans. Who knew what lay under that water? What yet undiscovered treasure?
Again I looked toward the shore, misted over now with the thickening air. That was England, the land of my birth, my home. Even now I was a wanted man there, but that was circumstance and no fault of the land nor the people. I was sailing away, but I would love her always, and wherever I went a bit of her would be with me.
To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder. Yet I had faith in the intentions of my countrymen, no matter how far they might at times stray from those intentions.
At last we moved in toward the Bill, rounded in, and among scattered rocks we found our way, and then a dark opening, darker now. Carefully, I eased the tiller, and the boat slid through the portals into a vast cavern, literally a cathedral of stone. From far above came a faint glimmer of light. There were holes, I had heard, from sheep pastures atop Portland Island that looked into the cavern, and the holes had been ringed with rocks to prevent unwary sheep from falling through.
Pim Burke looked around, awe-struck. "How did you know of this place?" Staring around, he asked, "Is there another way out?"
"Nobody knows," I told him. "Two passages lead off from here. One winds back for a ways, to a gravel beach at the end. My father was there once, and found a 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.