The Fortune-Hunter

by Julia Herbert

  “Jeffrey!” Amy cried. “No, no—I don’t believe it!”

  “Go and look for yourself, then, child. You’ll find him stretched out for the tide to drown if it hasn’t already done so.”

  All at once an icy calm descended on Amy. She turned once more to the door. When she reached it she paused. “If you have harmed him,” she said, “if he is dead ... I swear to you that I will never rest until you have paid for it. If it takes me the rest of my life, you shall dangle at the end of a rope for the murder of the man I love.”

  Even the self-satisfaction of Edward Pierce was not proof against the fierce coldness of her words and the glitter of her hazel eyes.

  “Nay, Amy,” he protested, “I—I didn’t know you cared for him in that way.”

  “Nor did I,” she said, “nor did I. But if he is dead, something in me has died also—that part that would make me shrink from watching you pay for your crime, Edward, Pierce.”

  Nest moment she was outside, the self-control already beginning to crumble into a ruin of despair and grief.

  “Jeffrey,” she whispered, “Jeffrey—oh, my love, where are you?”

  Somewhere on the long stretch of shore that ran between Markledon and Poole, the man she loved was bound hand and foot to strong pegs driven into the sand, waiting for the seas to wash over him with the finality of his death sheet.

  She stood for a moment, listening. She could hear the waves rolling in, rolling in.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  As she galloped out of Markledon, her one thought was to get to the beach. Watcher’s hooves struck sparks from the cobbles on the bridge as she crossed the river, heading out of the High Street towards first the pack-road and then the heathland that stretched away to the ironstone quarries on the higher ground.

  The quickest way down was at Hengistbury, where an easy slope had seen the drag-and-tackle of many a smuggling party bringing contraband ashore. But Hengistbury was east of Markledon, whereas the attack party from Poole had come from the west. Amy’s brain, beginning to function as she rode into the boisterous wind, told her that the smugglers would not have gone further along the shore than they need, loaded as they were with bags of tea and casks of brandy. They would have strapped Jeffrey down at some point along their route. Somewhere between Markledon and Poole—but that was a long stretch of shore, about twelve miles, and included the jutting sandbanks along the front of Poole Harbour known as the North Haven.

  She judged that the Pegmen would have gone across Poole Heath to Bourne Bottom, which was the easiest route for laden men and animals. They would have taken the road up Penny’s Hill and then struck out to the southeast to the path along the cliffs when they reached the Bourne. The cliff road would be safer for them in case the dragoons caught up with them, for then they would only have to defend themselves on one front while the cliffs and sea would make their other bulwark.

  So somewhere between Bourne Bottom and here, they must have taken Jeffrey down on the beach to tie him down. The first essential was to get down on to the sand.

  She beat Watcher unmercifully, to make him stretch out at his fastest pace. They went plunging down the sand dunes at the creek south of Carbery, the gorse catching cruelly at their sides. Watcher snorted and shied, frightened at what she was asking. Ahead of him in the gathering gloom was a stretch of grey water, rolling in in white-edged heights that roared and crashed only a few yards off. He had never been on the beach before, and the damp, yielding sand underfoot alarmed him, the approaching and receding of the sea was unnerving, while the cliff that began to grow tall above him as he galloped cast a shadow from the right.

  The shores of Hampshire and Dorset are different from the rest of Britain. Everywhere else has two tides a day, but here, because of the race of water caused from two directions by the Isle of Wight, the tide comes in twice in twelve hours.

  Amy was no fisher-girl, but she had been born and bred in these parts and already her mind was working out the tide times. Pierce had said the Pegmen attacked the Custom House when the harbour was a sea of mud; she recalled that he had fixed the time as “about nine o'clock”. So at about noon, the sea would have been up to the quay at Poole, and it would be up to the cliffs here at that time also.

  It was due to reach the cliffs again about six o’clock. As she had fled from Markledon she had heard the church clock strike six, so there was not a moment to lose. One thing was in her favour—the wind that had been rising all day. It was an off-shore wind, delaying the tide by perhaps as much as ten or fifteen minutes by the mere force of the air beating against the incoming waves.

  “Faster, Watcher, faster!” she sobbed, leaning forward along the back of the frightened pony.

  He scrambled on, hooves sinking into the sand, flanks beginning to heave from fatigue in these unaccustomed conditions. Now there were boulders and rocks among the sand and he reared and flung himself sideways as his eye caught a great shape that could have been a monster but was only a weed-covered stone.

  Amy threw herself from his back and, holding him by the reins, picked her way among the rocks. Only a few feet away on her left the sea made sucking sounds amongst them. There was but a narrow corridor now between the sea on one hand and the cliffs on the other. Watcher pulled back, anxious to be out of this trap. But she dragged him on, and a few minutes later was rewarded with easier going, smoother sand.

  And there, a hundred yards ahead, she caught a gleam of fair hair on the ground. She called, but the sound of the cry was lost in the roar of the surf and the moaning of the wind.

  “Jeffrey! Jeffrey!” She let go of Watcher’s rein and ran forward. Yes, now she could make out the shape stretched out on the beach. The long body lay with the arms pulled up and stretched outwards, the dull blue of his riding coat against the wavering beige of the sand.

  “Jeffrey! My darling!” She ran. The wind caught at her cloak, whipping it back from her shoulders. She let it fly away behind her, exposing her cheeks and neck to the cold spray. She heard a flurry of sound but didn’t turn as Watcher, terrified at the great bat-like flying thing, turned and raced away.

  She threw herself down on her knees at Jeffrey’s side. The scatter and sprawl of her arrival in the sand made him turn his head as far as he could, and she saw in the waning light the astonishment in his clear grey eyes.

  “Amy! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  “Oh, thank God, thank God! You’re alive! He was wrong—the tide hasn’t claimed you yet. Wait, Jeffrey, you’ll be free in an instant. Wait till I untie the ropes. Oh, Jeffrey!”

  Sobbing and laughing, blinded by her own tears, she scrambled up the slight slope of the beach to his right hand, which was wound about with inch-thick rope attached to a stout stave hammered into the ground. She clawed at the bond, but it was iron-hard, tied by an expert and made all the more immovable by the dampness that had seeped into it from the sand.

  Her nails broke, the skin tore off her fingers. The knot remained unchanged. She felt the sea rush over her feet and the hem of her riding skirt.

  “I can’t!” she panted. “I can’t! Oh, God, I can’t untie it!”

  “Amy—”

  “There isn’t time,” she sobbed, “we have only a moment or two. There’s something I must tell you, Jeffrey—I want you to know—”

  “Amy, listen to me—”

  “No, no, let me speak!” she cried. “I won’t leave you—you won’t be alone, Jeffrey. I shall die with you, because—”

  “Don't be a fool, Amy!”

  The words were like a whiplash. They cut across the hysterical avowal of love she’d been about to make. They actually stung her physically so that she threw up her hand to her cheeks and sat back, gasping in pain.

  “We’re not going to die,” he said, raising his voice so that it could be heard above the roar of the breakers. “If you’ll catch hold of your senses we can be out of here in minutes.”

  “Oh, if you think I’d go without you�
�”

  “I said ‘we’, not ‘you’, though by heaven I’d rather die by myself than let you sit there weeping by my side.”

  “Oh!” she gasped. “But I—but you—”

  “Be silent and do as I tell you. Amy—there’s a knife in my pocket.”

  “It’s useless, useless ... What?”

  “A knife, you madwoman! A knife!”

  “A knife?”

  “In my pocket. Get it out!”

  “Which pocket?” she cried, suddenly coming to her senses under that crisp command.

  “Damn it, I don’t know—but stop crying and find it!” She thrust her raw and bleeding fingers into the capacious pocket of his riding coat. She felt the usual paraphernalia that men find it necessary to carry—a kerchief, a pencil, a pocket notebook, coins, a little box for flint and steel and then ... yes ... the cool and solid shape of the folded pocket knife.

  “I’ve got it,” she cried. “Wait, I’ll open it!”

  Easier said than done. She had torn away her nails so that she had nothing to put into the little niche that would pull out the hinged blade. She delved in his pocket and found a small coin. Using that, she prised the knife blade out.

  To cut a rope with a knife sounds a simple undertaking. But this was a small knife, intended for cutting quill pens or perhaps leather harness thongs; whereas the rope was thick and strong. She sawed at it, weeping again in panic and frustration, telling Jeffrey that the strands were parting although not a shred seemed to be cut.

  “Push the point into the hemp, Amy—don’t try to cut right through, dig pieces out. That’s it, that’s my brave girl. Again.”

  He was speaking to her as if she were a child. She resented it with one half of her mind, yet it steadied her. She dug at the rope, and a piece came away.

  “Good. Now the other side of the fibres.”

  The blade slipped. The point went into his wrist. “Oh, heaven!” she cried. “Oh, forgive me, Jeffrey!”

  “Never mind, never mind. Oh, don’t start whimpering again! Amy, stick to the matter in hand.”

  “Whimpering?” she repeated. She bit her lip. “I’m not whimpering!”

  She began to saw savagely at the hempen strands. All at once she was business-like and steady. She felt the sea rush up the sands to the place where she was kneeling. When it receded it only went as far as her feet. She was drenched and cold. For Jeffrey it was even worse—his long body was stretched out into the rising tide, the edge of his coat was beginning to float this way and that with the waves. The light was fading fast now.

  Bending close to his wrist, she dug and cut at the rope. Now the strands were beginning to spring apart. “Pull, Jeffrey—can you pull against it?”

  She saw his fist clench as he heaved against the bond that held him. A third, fourth and yet a fifth strand gave way. She worked at the remaining twist of hemp, not daring to look round at the sea which she could feel at her knees.

  And at last, under the combined efforts of her knife and his tugging the last of that fetter gave way. His right hand was free.

  “Give me the knife,” he commanded.

  She obeyed. He turned on his left shoulder and with his right hand began to cut at the bond holding the left hand.

  “Go now,” he said, without turning back to her.

  “Go?”

  “Climb the cliff. The tide’s coming in fast.”

  “But I can’t go without you!”

  “Do as you’re told! Climb the cliff!”

  “No!” she wailed, tears returning. “I won’t go without you.”

  He turned his head to speak to her sternly, and as he did so his numbed hand lost its grasp of the knife. It slithered down his arm and disappeared under the shallow water that had now crept almost to his chest.

  “Confound it!” he swore, “it’s gone!”

  “I’ll get it.” She leapt up and ran round to his other side, where she began to ferret about beneath the little waves.

  “Don’t do that!” he exclaimed. “You’ll bury it in the sand.”

  “But I—”

  “Sit still a moment. Now ... it must be somewhere close to my shoulder. Feel about gently.”

  “Yes, here it is. I’ve got it now. Let me do it, Jeffrey. Your hands have lost the sense of feeling.”

  “Give it to me, Amy. I command you, give it to me—and get off this beach on to the cliff before you are stranded.”

  “I don’t go until you go.”

  He gave up the argument. “All right, fetch me a stone to sharpen this blade.”

  “A stone?” she echoed blankly. “What use is a stone?”

  “To get an edge on the knife, of course. Oh, don’t argue at every word, girl—fetch me a flat stone.”

  She scrambled up and felt about in the gloom. She felt a pebble about six inches across, with a flat surface. She held it out to Jeffrey who, with ten or twelve strokes of the blade across it, whetted the edge to a razor sharpness.

  After that it was the work of a moment to cut through the rope at his left wrist. “I should have sharpened it days ago.” he panted as he sat up and set to work on the ties at his ankles, invisible under the water. “It only goes to show that we shouldn’t put off till tomorrow what we can do—”

  “How can you quote proverbs?” she cried. “Quick, quick, the tide’s flowing in fast.”

  “I’m coming.” He staggered up, swaying a little. “God, I’m numb all over.”

  “Lean on me.”

  “Quick, Amy, we must get up the cliff.” Instead of placing his hand on her shoulder for aid, he gave her a sharp push towards the headland. “Move, girl, move!”

  She tried to obey, but her heavy riding skirt was sodden. It tangled itself around her limbs so that she couldn’t stride forward, but instead fell face down into about twelve inches of sea water. A wave surged over her. She screamed in terror and the sea rushed into her mouth. She felt herself choking and flailed about with her arms.

  Someone caught one flailing arm and dragged her upright. Someone said encouragingly in her ear, “Come, don’t drown yourself like a kitten. Up, up—on to the cliff.”

  “I can’t!” she gasped, “I can’t!’

  “You must!” He put both arms round her from behind and lifted her forward. The heavy skirts untangled themselves in the water and she was able to walk. Half walking, half being lifted, she made the few yards to the foot of the bluff. The water was at knee level, surging strongly among the boulders at the foot of the sandstone face. Jeffrey let go for a moment and stared up.

  The sky was dark grey now. A young moon was beginning to spread a little light among racing clouds. The wind had turned, as it is wont to do after sunset, so that now it was helping to drive the tide in.

  “Do you know this place? Is there a path?”

  “I ... I don’t think so.”

  “Further along? If we edged along the foot of the cliff?”

  “I don’t think so. The nearest is Bourne Bottom—we might be in water over our heads by the time we reached it.”

  “Very well, we must take our chance here. Quick, on to this boulder, Amy.” With his help she managed to get on top of it. From there she would have to step on to the almost perpendicular wall of sandstone. There was a narrow ledge, made perhaps by rabbits who had burrows on the heathland above. She nerved herself to make the step, but could not.

  “Quick, Amy, quick!”

  “I can’t!”

  “In God’s name, why not?”

  “I shan’t be able to keep my balance. My clothes are weighing me down like a net of stones.”

  He climbed on to the boulder and stepped across on the narrow ledge, a little above her. He held on with one hand to a tussock, reaching out with the other. “Come, Amy.”

  She moved her feet. The serge skirt dragged like a fetter. “I can’t, Jeffrey, truly I can’t. My skirt is so full of water.”

  “Then take it off.”

  “What?”

  “If you c
an’t climb in your skirt you must climb in your petticoats.”

  “Sir, how dare you!”

  “Oh, don’t be missish about it, girl! Which would you prefer—to be dead and decent or alive and immodest? Untie the skirt and let’s be up out of this tide water!”

  Thankful that the darkness hid her scarlet cheeks, Amy untied the tapes that drew together the top of the skirt under the little tight-waisted jacket, and let the full flounces slip down over her hips. The skirt fell round her ankles on the rock. The waves were already licking there, moving the heavy brown serge this way and that like some great piece of seaweed.

  Clinging against her legs now was what had once been an elegant underskirt of fine cambric and ruched lace. It was most improper to expose it to view, but it was much less heavy than the discarded skirt.

  “I’ll go up and pull you after me. Are you ready for the first step?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well—come now.” He held out his hand again and this time she stepped forward on to the ledge.

  Her foot found a precarious hold. She was standing beside him, very close. He put his arm about her to steady her.

  She was shivering with cold and fright. Her hair had gone into little damp ringlets that had the tang of salt. He could hear her breathing, fast and ragged. He wanted to tell her that she was the bravest and finest girl in all the world, but knew that one gentle word would unleash floods of tears.

  “I’m going up to the next foothold. Stand very still.”