Elizabeth said. 'The tide will move them along soon enough.'
At last the brothers wiped their mouths and stood. Once they'd picked up the stretcher, Captain Cury vanished into the gloom towards Charmouth. We headed in the opposite direction, back to Lyme, following the Days as if they were carrying a coffin to its grave. Indeed, we took the path that led into town through St Michael's graveyard, and then down Butter Market to Cockmoile Square. Along the way people stopped to peer at the slabs of stone on the stretcher, and there were murmurs of 'crocodile' all along the street.
The day after we got the skull out, I run back to Church Cliffs as soon as the tide let me, but Captain Cury had already got there. He was willing to wade through water and freeze his feet so he would be first. I couldn't challenge him, for I was on my own--Joseph had been hired to do a day's work at Lyme's mill, where one of the workers had taken ill, and couldn't give up the chance to earn us a day's bread. I hid and watched Captain Cury poking into the great hole the skull had left in the cliff. Cursing him, I hoped a rock would fall from above and hit his head.
Then I had a wicked, wicked idea, and I'm ashamed to say I followed it. I never told anyone how bad I was that day. I run back along the beach, then climbed the path above Church Cliffs, creeping along it to where I was just above the crocodile hole. 'God damn you, Captain Cury,' I whispered, and pushed a loose rock the size of my fist over the edge. I heard him give a shout, and smiled as I lay flat on the ground to be sure he wouldn't see me. Though I did not mean to hurt him, I did want to scare him off.
He would be standing away from the cliff now, watching to see what more would come down. I chose a larger rock and shoved it over, along with a handful of dirt and pebbles to make it seem like an avalanche. This time I heard nothing, but kept low. If he knew what I was doing he would punish me, I was sure.
Then it occurred to me he might come looking. Though it was common for rocks to fall, Captain Cury was the suspicious sort. I crept back from the cliff and hurried back down the path. Just in time I darted behind a clump of tall grass as he come past with a face full of fury. Somehow he'd worked out the stones weren't naturally falling. I hid till he was out of sight, then nipped down the path to the beach and run along the cliff to the crocodile hole. With luck I could have a quick look before he come back, just to see if we would need to get the Day brothers digging again.
In the clear daylight it was easier to see back into the hole Billy and Davy had made. The skull had come out at an angle, and the body, depending how long it was, could extend far into the stone. With a head four foot long it could easily be ten to fifteen feet into the cliff. I crawled into the space and felt near the spot where I remembered the skull's verteberries ended. I touched a long ridge of knobbly rock and begun to scrape at it to get the dirt and clay off.
Then Captain Cury rushed up behind me in a rage. 'You! Not surprised to find you here, you nasty little bitch.'
I shrieked and jumped out of the hole, then flattened myself against the cliff, terrified to be caught alone with him. 'Get away from me--it's my croc!' I cried.
Captain Cury grabbed my arm and twisted it behind me. He were strong for an old man. 'Trying to kill me, was you, girl? I'll teach you a lesson!' He reached behind him for his spade.
I never found out what he would have taught me, for at that moment the cliff come to my aid. In the years since I've many times felt it my enemy. That day, though, the cliff sent down a shower of rocks near by, some of them as large as those I'd rolled over, accompanied by a slide of pebbles. Captain Cury, who'd been about to hurt me, suddenly become my saviour, jerking me away from the cliff as a rock smashed down where I'd just been standing. 'Quick!' he cried, and we clung onto each other as we stumbled towards the water to a safe distance. Then we looked back to see that the whole section of cliff I'd been standing on top of not long before had crumbled, turning from solid ground into a river of stones raining down. The roar of it was like the thunder I'd heard as a baby, but it lasted longer and rushed through me like darkness rather than the bright buzz of lightning. It took at least a minute for the rocks and scree to finish falling to the bottom of the cliff. Captain Cury and I remained frozen, watching and waiting.
When at last the cliff stopped moving and it grew quiet, I begun to cry. It weren't just that I'd almost died. The landslip was now completely blocking the hole where the croc-odile's body was. We couldn't get to it without years of digging. Captain Cury took a pewter flask from his pocket, unscrewed the top, took a swig and handed it to me. I wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve, then drank. I'd never had strong spirits. It burned a road down my throat and made me cough, but I did stop crying.
'Thanks, Captain Cury,' I said, handing back the flask.
'All that hammering yesterday must have weakened the cliff and brought it down.
There were a bit of it earlier, but I thought--' Captain Cury didn't finish. 'You'll have the damnedest work ahead of you, getting anything out of there.' He nodded at the landslip.
'My spade's in there too. Looks like I'll have to get another.'
It were almost comical how quickly hard work put him off looking for anything.
Now it was my crocodile again--buried behind a pile of rubble.
4
There are several people I have met throughout my life whom I have regarded with disdain, but none has angered me more than Henry Hoste Henley. Lord Henley came to see me the day after the Days dug out the skull. He did not use the boot scraper, but trailed mud into our parlour. When Bessy announced him, Louise was
