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.
Would she come? Had they received my message? Were they free to come, or had they been taken and imprisoned, too?
A slow hour passed, and I knew it was but the beginning, for we might wait many hours, even days.
Slowly the hours drew by. We took turns sleeping, yet kept a watch from the cavern mouth where we could not be seen. Visibility was poor, and we would not have much time.
Waves broke against the rocks, snarled and sucked their teeth against the black rocks. While the others slept I watched and held my sword and thought of what lay before me.
I dozed, awakened, dozed again, yet was awake again at last to watch the sea darken. Dipping both oars into the water I rowed the boat through the wide entrance into open water. Waves broke furiously over sharp- toothed rocks nearby.
One huge pinnacle, already worn and ravaged by the sea, stood a grim and silent sentinel against the wind.
Black Tom sat up, then moved to shake out the sail. He glanced at me and grinned. 'God ha' pity on the poor sailors on such a night as this!'
Pim Burke sat up. 'They'll see us from the cliffs yon,' he warned.
'Aye, if they're out and standing in the rain, they'll see us, but he would be a fool indeed who had a warm fire on his hearth to be standing on the black cliffs looking upon the sea. A fool or a poet, I'm thinking!'
'Or a wife with a husband still out,' Pim Burke added. 'My ma has watched from such a cliff, and many a time, for sons and husband ... and watched in vain, more times than not.'
'England's given enough of her blood to the sea,' Tom Watkins said, 'time and again. Since men first walked her shores, they have gone down to the sea and left their hearts there, and their bones on the bottom.'
Talking had become hard with the wind upon us, and blown spray and spume in the air, so we desisted from speech and I clung to the tiller, meeting the heavy seas as well I could. She was a good craft that and, bad as the seas now were, no doubt the boat had known worse. Yet as our bows were splattered with foam, I could not think of the dead men's skulls below, and wonder if we three might add ours to the lot.
All the night long we fought the sea, and there was no sail against the sky, not even a bare pole. So with dawn we put about and ran in for the cove, and it was a bitter thing we did to make that cavern mouth at all, but make it we did, riding the crest of a big one that took us safely over the last rocks and left us there, just inside the mouth.
No longer was the water calm within the cavern, for the storm outside brought great, rolling seas within, swells black and shining that rose until we feared our mast would shatter against the roof. But of course it was not so high at all, just in our fears.
It was no good place to be, even so. Yet such is man that soon we became used to our lot. I broke out some biscuit and passed it about, and as we lay there upon the rise and fall of the swells and the booming of the sea within, we chewed our biscuit and wished for an end to the storm.
At last the wind changed, the swells became less, and once more we could see out across the stormy sea. The wind howled like all the banshees in Ireland, but no ship showed herself upon the sea. The long day through we watched, and when the night came weariness lay heavy upon us, and occasionally through the broken clouds the moon shone down.
Next day, again we fought the sea and schooled our boat to take the waves, and a gallant craft she was. And then, with the dawn breaking clear, we saw her bare poles black against the rising sun, rolled and tossed and smashed about, and I knew her for what she was, the ship we were waiting for.
'There'll be a line overside,' I said.
They watched as we drew nearer and nearer, our two courses becoming one. She was down to just enough canvas to hold her nose into the wind, and I glimpsed at least two men on the deck as we closed in.
'It's her or Newgate,' I said. 'And if we miss, at least we'll lie clean upon the sea's bottom.'
'Aye!' Pim balanced to the roll and rubbed his palms down his shirt to dry them for a clean grip. 'Take us to her, man.'
The ship came alongside as our courses became one, and a line was tossed to us.
We took it sharply and bent it quickly to make fast; and then a ladder was over and I glimpsed the face of Sakim-my friend the Moor.
We made fast the painter that would tow the boat after we were aboard, and Pim took the ladder by its side and went up like a monkey and over the rail.
'Tom?' I knew he could not hear in the wind and the creaking and groaning, but my gesture spoke.
He looked with no favor on the swinging ladder but it was no new thing to a man who had boarded many a smuggling craft, so he grabbed the ladder, slipped badly, then went up.
I held the end of the line I must pull to release her so she'd fall astern on the painter. For an instant I held it, then tugged and grabbed for the rope ladder. One foot missed, the other toe landed fair, and up the ladder I went, banging a finger badly against the hull, and over.
When our boat fell back to the painter's end I thought it might snap, but the line held and she towed there behind us, a gallant craft, handsome, sturdy, and sure. I blessed her in my mind for a good little ship, and turned to the deck with my hand on my sword.
'You've no need to worry.' It was one-eyed Jeremy Ring at my side. 'We got rid of Malmayne's gang in London. And you can thank your lady for it.'
'Abigail?'
'Aye! She smuggled them rum from the ship's locker and we lugged them all ashore.'
He showed me to the after-cabin. I opened it to the light, and stepped in.
She was standing there, her hands out to me, and her lips bright with a smile, her father behind her.
With me they were at last, England on our beam, and America yonder across the sea, and a fit lot of men with me to start a new land. If they lived. And if I did.
We went into the cabin and Captain Tempany got to his feet from behind the table where he had spread his charts. 'Lad, lad! It is good to see you! We were afraid, especially when they came aboard in London, and we knew them for Malmayne's men.'
'Are we safe?'
He looked up from under thick brows. 'Have you forgotten the Queen? There'll be ships out for us when they know you've escaped.'
I had thought myself secure once aboard ship. Now my confidence was gone. But the boat was fully crewed, with my old friends Sakim, Jublain, and Jeremy Ring.
There was also a crew of good craftsmen, to homestead the new American world.
The ship was also heavily laden with munitions.
