An Ensuing Evil and Others

She should pass the Tribbens at midnight. My brother intends to be aboard to inspect the rocks as they sail by.”

“Isn’t that dangerous in view of what has transpired to the previous ships?” I asked.

“It will be a clear night tonight with calm weather,” he replied. “In normal circumstances, there should be no danger. However…” He ended with an eloquent shrug.

“Surely, your brother is a practical man,” Holmes said, “and would be prepared for any unusual occurrence?”

“He is not the skipper and crew,” pointed out Sir Jelbart.

“You have piqued my curiosity, Sir Jelbart,” Holmes said thoughtfully.

Just then Mrs. Chirgwin put her head around the parlor door and announced that the midday meal was ready and she would not be blamed if it was to get cold, gentleman caller or no.

Holmes arose, smiling. “Pray, stay to lunch with us, Sir Jelbart, and, afterward we will accompany you back to this Sennen Cove. We will stay overnight if you can accommodate us. By the way, do you have access to a rowing boat and a competent seaman who would be prepared to row us out to these haunted rocks?”

Sir Jelbart rose and held out his hand. “I do, indeed, sir. I am glad the instinct that brought me hither has been proved a good one.”

The journey from Poldhu Bay around the great stretch of Mounts Bay, through the town of Penzance, along the inhospitable inland road, passing such strange un-English-sounding places as Buryas, Trenuggo, CrowsanWra, Treave, and Carn Towan, before reaching the village of Sennen, was longer than I had expected. We finally arrived at Sir Jelbart’s house of Chy Trevescan in the early evening. It was this journey, through the desolate landscape, with standing stones and ancient crosses that illustrated, for me at least, that Cornwall was, indeed, “the land beyond England.” A strange, ancient place, lost in time.

The sun was low in the sky, almost directly in our eyes, as we came along the road above Whitesand Bay heading south to Sennen. I saw a spectacular stretch of sandy beach about a mile long and curving. Sir Jelbart was full of local folklore. It was here, apparently, that the Saxon King Athelstan landed during his attempt to conquer the Celts of Cornwall. It was here that the Pretender Perkin Warbeck came ashore from Ireland in his vain attempt to seize the English Crown. The sea was calm now, but our guide told us that it usually came rolling shoreward in long breakers.

“There is a small craft out there by that point,” observed Holmes. “It seems to have a curious engine fitted on its stern.”

Sir Jelbart glanced toward it. It was anchored at the north end of the bay, the opposite end of the large bay to the location of Sennen Cove.

“That’s Aires Point.” He screwed up his eyes to focus on the point. “Ah, that is young Harry Penwarne’s boat.”

“What’s he doing?”

“No idea. He’s a bit of an inventor. Amateur, of course. He once explained it all to me. The Penwarne place is just by Aire’s Point at Tregrifnan. Sad history.”

“Why so?” asked Holmes.

“The Penwarnes are one of the old families in these parts, but young Harry’s father was a gambler. He lost most of the family fortune. Shot himself while young Harry was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris about ten years ago. Harry returned here and has tried to keep Tregrifnan House going. Inventive young man. Full of all these modern technological ideas, but he worries too much. Frequently seen him with bloodshot eyes. Burning the midnight oil, what?”

Chy Trevescan was certainly a large house in anyone’s estimation. But it was an ugly house. Squat and brooding, thickset, just like the granite countryside. As we drove up to the main door, we noticed that a small pony and trap stood outside. It was a single horse, twowheeled affair. Standing on the step was a solemnfaced man whose black broadcloth proclaimed him as a minister.

“Sir Jelbart,” the man greeted him even before he descended, “I do not approve of this enterprise. I have heard that your brother is sailing on the Torrington Lass tonight, and I do not approve.”

“Our local minister, Mr. Neal,” explained Sir Jelbart under his breath. Then aloud: “I fail to see what business it is of yours, sir. You have abrogated your responsibility to your flock by not demonstrating that what is happening on the Tribbens Rocks is not the Devil’s work. Now my brother and I must take matters into our own hands.”

Mr. NeaFs face was distorted in anger. “As your minister, I forbid it. You have no right to interfere with matters of the otherworld. It is God’s wish that these vessels be stricken down, for their crews must be debauched. They are being punished for their sins; otherwise God would intervene and save them from their doom! I tell you, it is God who drives those ships on the Tribbens Rocks! Their vines are vines of Sodom, grown on the terraces of Gomorrah; their grapes are poisonous, the clusters bitter to the taste….”

“Deuteronomy!” snapped Holmes suddenly, the sharpness of his voice causing the minister to stop, blinking. “But hardly appropriate. God would surely not waste his time organizing shipwrecks, Mr. Neal, in order to punish those souls who have met their fate on those rocks.”

“I warn you, sir,” cried the minister, “do not attempt to interfere or you, too, will be doomed-the way of the wicked is doomed….”

“But the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,” replied Holmes solemnly, quoting from the same psalm.

The minister turned toward his governess’s cart. “You have been warned!” he cried as he climbed into his pony and trap and disappeared down the driveway.

Sir Jelbart bade us come inside for refreshment while he sent for the local fisherman whom he trusted. Holmes suggested that only he and myself, together with the boatman, need set out on the expedition to examine the rocks. The boatman’s name was Noall Tresawna, a simple, thickset man. Holmes explained what he wanted, and the man made no demur. When Holmes asked him if he had heard about the supernatural phenomenon, Tresawna nodded.

“Are you not a little apprehensive, my friend?” asked Holmes. “We must rely on your nerve and experience in a little boat out there among’the rocks.”

“I do be a Godfearing man, master,” Tresawna replied. “I say my prayers and keep the commandments, and I place my fate in God’s hands. For it is written in the Good Book:

Happy is the man

who does not take the wicked for his guide

nor walk the road that sinners tread

nor take his seat among the scornful…

Holmes broke in:

… the law of the Lord is his delight

the law his meditation night and day.

Tresawna looked impressed. “Aye, master, that do be so, and thus I be not afear’d of specters.”

Toward midnight, Tresawna met us at the kitchen door of the house and led us by the light of a storm lantern across fields to a cliff top, which was a point overlooking the Tribbens. The point was called Pednmendu, which Holmes afterward told me meant “the head of black stone.” A dangerous stairlike path descended to where he had moored his boat. The night was a dark blue velvet. Bright white stars winked in the sky, and the moon was only in its first quarter and thus shedding little illumination.

Once inside the boat, Tresawna extinguished the lantern, for he knew the seas around the coast better in what little natural light there was than by artificial means.

Holmes bent close to me as we sat in the stern. “Have you brought your revolver as I requested, Watson?”

“I have. But do you expect me to shoot at a twelvefoothigh naked dancer?” I inquired sarcastically.

“Not quite, old fellow. I expect a more tangible, fleshandblood target to present itself.”

The little boat rocked its way through the calm, dark seas along the tower cliffs of Pednmendu, out to a