batted his belaying pin into the side of her head. She dropped soundlessly.
'Hammer that man!' came Mr. Clay's roar. A Royal Duke obeyed, and a boarder, escaping from under the awning, collapsed before he could scramble back overboard. The two men alongside turned now, as if to leave their beleaguered party to its fate. At Hoare's ear, a firepot sizzled, stank, and went out.
Among the combatants, marlinespike at the ready, roved Dan'l O'Gock, Anglo-Inuit. Thrice, Hoare saw him pause over a head, examine it as if to assure himself that it belonged to a boarder, and then tap it sharply with the spike. Hoare remembered that, however much the people of his fathers craved animal blood, they were chary indeed of shedding that of humans.
Having closed his trap on the boarders, Hoare found he could barely rise from his squat. He struggled, but managed only to drop his hatchet. He was forty-four, and far too stiff and chilled for battle. The pair below- Goldthwait and his underworld guide Ogle, if that were he-were on the move, and he must follow. For Goldthwait still held Hoare's Jenny. Hoare would see which man would be broken with Goldthwait's rod of iron.
Lurching to his feet at last, he drew a belaying pin from the row in the pinrail at his knees, hurled it at the retreating pair. It skidded wildly, as he knew it would; he lacked the eye his womenfolk possessed. He stuck two more pins into his belt and clambered across Royal Duke's rail, to take up the chase, while the shouts of combat aboard his command now sounded somewhat more feeble behind his back. For a stunned second, he wondered what they should do with these people, but then decided to leave the question to Mr. Clay, whose bellowed battle orders still filled the snowy air.
His quarry's double track, already filling with snow, led up the wide steps of Greenwich Palace. Knowing he was falling behind with every step, suppressing a growing sense of futility, he followed.
Set into the left-hand valve of the formal bronze palace gate, a smaller doorway stood ajar, leaving a crack of uninformative blackness within. Hoare entered here, to stand in the silent dark, his eyes helpless, ears and nose a- prick. From his left, a cold, dank zephyr brought him a tantalizingly familiar smell. He could swear he associated it with Sir Thomas and Goldthwait. Yes, by Jove! Russia leather! He turned and commenced a blind march along the marble pavement.
Within moments, he had no idea which way to go. He stood in the midst of blank, dank darkness. The darkness was not absolute; from some high clerestory, a faint glow of reflected city lights reached him, but he could make out nothing of his surroundings.
Yank.
Like a startled hare, Hoare leapt in place and dropped back to his feet, prepared to flee.
'Me, sir. Bubble. They gone that-a-way. Come along, if ye pleases.'
A hand, certainly not Bubble's, took his. It was soft and gentle, yet surprisingly strong. He was in the clutches of the Struldbrug, Squeak.
'I'll show that barstid Ogle 'oo knows theseyear tunnels,' Bubble growled, ' 'im or me. 'E'll be goin' parst the beer an' then a-takin' the spy-'ole, the eejit.'
The handless man's mention of 'beer' left Hoare feeling more confused than ever, but, with no alternative to hand, he let himself be towed along in Squeak's wake. The 'beer' question resolved itself in the next chamber, a vast one in which rested an amorphous looming construction, ebon in the cavernous space. Close to, it revealed itself a jury-rigged thing of green lath, held together by lengths of crape-the abandoned bier where the victor of Trafalgar had lain in state before being rowed upstream by Hoare's acquaintance Hornblower. Having heard of the other's struggles, Hoare knew he could never have managed the job, even if he had had the voice for it.
'Shh, now,' Bubble breathed into Hoare's ear. 'They might justa took 'idin' inside. There be a bolt-'ole below 'er, an' that barstid Ogle mought knowa.' Hoare drew a belaying pin from his waistband and followed the leader under a projection of the bier, into utter, Stygian gloom. Within, he heard scrabbling sounds, and hoped it was only Bubble, exploring the inner fastnesses.
'They still be a'ead of us, ye know, sir,' were Bubble's next words. 'If yer game fer it, we can cotch up on 'em, most of the ways, any'ow, if we jes' eeeases oursel's through 'ere…'
Hoare returned the belaying pin to its place and let Squeak take him in tow again, along passage after turning passage, until, having long since lost all sense of direction, his sense of time followed it in going adrift. Twice, they emerged into comparative light, once in what appeared to be a long-abandoned bedchamber of state, and again onto a long loggia. It was still snowing, and Hoare found the dim gray light all but dazzling.
It was just as the three were about to duck into still another passageway-this one a good five feet high and cased in rusticated stone-that Squeak stumbled and fell, clutching an ankle in silent pain. Bubble, who had just opened the way for their entrance, turned, bent over the ankle, and held a muttered conversation with its owner. When he stood erect again, his concern was visible even through his wild growth of hair.
'That's it for us, sir. Squeak can't walk, not t'rough these narrer ways.'
Hoare's heart dropped. Was he to be left here, then-where, he had no idea-not only blocked from recovering his Jenny, but even blocked from seeking his own selfish escape?
'Look, sir. If ye 'ave a steady 'ead an' a good memory, I think I can tell yer the rest of the way to w'ere yer friend an' that barstid Ogle are laid up, most likely. This gate, mebbe ye'll even get there a'ead of 'em.
'Are ye game for it?'
When Hoare, having no choice, chose with a terse nod, Bubble commenced to subject him to a memory drill that far outdid the torment he had experienced as a mid, of learning where every line in a three-masted vessel was made fast, and under which circumstances. In the earlier drills, the boatswain had embedded each line into Hoare's person for emphasis; Bubble simply thumped him with the club of his heavy right arm every time he missed a turning.
At last he declared himself satisfied. With a final shove, he propelled Hoare into the passage.
'Scrag that barstid Ogle for me!' he called in his hoarse voice as Hoare, taking a deep breath as if preparing to dive deep, plunged into the last labyrinth.
There was light at the end of the tunnel, a dull reddish light, partly obscured, once and then again, by what Hoare was certain from its motion could only be a stooped human figure. If he was right, it could only be an enemy-Goldthwait, or that barstid Ogle. Hoare remembered the last time he had been faced with the challenge of creeping up on an enemy to do him in; it had involved the hapless upstairs watch in Gracechurch Street. This situation differed, though, for his target was not so thoughtful as to be leaning over a rail, ready to be tipped overboard. Hoare debated, pulled off his soggy shoes, drew the clasp knife he had last drawn to release his Eleanor from bondage, unclasped it- softly, softly-tucked it between his teeth like a pirate in a melodrama, crawled up behind the target, leapt, drew, and sliced firmly across the other man's throat. He collapsed against Hoare with a hiss of escaping life blood, and a burst of foulness accompanied his death. It was not Goldthwait, so it must be Ogle.
Beyond, the tunnel widened into a small dim grotto lit only by a glow of charcoal, easily large enough to accommodate several men. A pile of rags occupied one corner, a pile that might have hidden Squeak. Some ten feet off, an arched door opened at the grotto's farther end. Between Hoare and the doorway, John Goldthwait was just turning-in response, perhaps, to some small sound of Hoare's. He was in the act of drawing a small, serviceable pistol. Hoare squatted, sprang, and in springing, remembered that his precious clasp knife lay behind him, abandoned in Ogle's blood. Hoare prepared to die.
As Hoare was still in mid-air, Goldthwait yelped with pain, kicked up one leg as if beginning some macabre pas seul, and fired the pistol into the grotto's ceiling. Hoare fell upon him amid a sprinkle of stone from above, and grappled.
Goldthwait might be doughty, but he was smaller than Hoare, and he was quickly the underdog. Somehow, besides, Hoare found himself gripping a long shard of porcelain; it was just long enough, he discovered, to grip and thrust under and up into Goldthwait's vitals.
Beneath him, Goldthwait went limp. His mouth opened, and a thin trail of blood trickled across his cheek.
'Maman?' he whispered, and again, 'maman? Me voici, dans le jardin… Tu m'as laisse tout soul!
'Maman? Maman? Que j'ai peur… Ma…' His jaw dropped with a sigh, and his head fell to one side.
Utterly weary, Hoare rose, but could no more than crouch beside John Goldthwait. Absently, he reached out for the serviceable pistol. Why not? After all, it was his property.
Into his vacant stare swam a small, blood-smeared face, the face of Jennifer Hoare, formerly Jenny Jaggery,
