Irish Pennants-the occasional tag ends of line left by careless crewmen to drag along over a vessel's side-had always spelled slipshod seamanship to Hoare, and, like his fellow officers, he had suppressed them wherever found, as if they were so many signs of sodomy. Now, however, he thanked fortune that Moreau, at least, cared nothing for them. From a cleat below Marie Claire's toy stern gallery a good three fathoms of half-inch line trailed sinuous in her wake. One of Hoare's flailing hands found its bitter end. It might have been the painter of a poorly minded skiff, for it was frayed and not whipped. Whatever else it may have been, it was a blessing.
Hoare kicked off his shoes. As silently as he could, he hauled himself up the line in the dark, hand over hand. As silently as he could, he hoisted himself far enough out of the water to shift his grip to the rail of the stern gallery. The carven structure was a mere flourish which Moreau must have installed to make his little schooner seem bigger. It was rugged enough to carry part of Hoare's weight, but when he tried to hoist himself as silently as he could out of the water, it creaked softly, alarmingly, out of the vessel's own rhythm.
His gently searching feet struck against something vertical beside them. It was Marie Claire's rudder, its gudgeons groaning gently in the pintles as the helmsman adjusted her course. There Hoare squatted, secure, but seized by occasional chills, and waited in the night to discover what fate might bring his way.
Above him, he could hear French being spoken. The voices came and went.
"I must… London as soon… close down… You must go.. Jaggery in Ports… Dispose…" This voice was Moreau's.
"… in London, sir?… Louis-…?"
This was one of Moreau's men. To Hoare's straining ears it had sounded as though the Frenchman was naming someone, presumably Moreau's man-or master? — in London. "Louis." How agonizing not to have caught the rest of the name.
"Never mind who. Tend to your own business. Get forward, you lubber, and trim the fore-staysail…" Moreau's words came loud and clear. Yes, the other had, indeed, been naming someone. Damn.
Silence fell on deck. Hoare resigned himself to clinging where he was while his destiny worked itself out. Marie Claire ghosted on toward Weymouth. He clung, schemed, dozed.
"Here." after the long silence, Moreau's sharp command struck hard on Hoare's ears. "No, we won't anchor. I must get ashore, and since you, you cretin, let our skiff go adrift, you must put me onto the quay. There, beside that interfering revenue cutter. Then take her out again. I'll send two or three men out in a skiff.
"Stand off and on offshore of the Bill until I signal you. It may be three or four days. If you don't see my signal by Wednesday, make for Douarnenez and report to Rossignol.
"Now, repeat my orders."
Mumble.
"Very good. Now come up, Bessac! D'you want to put our bowsprit through the cutter?"
The rudder swung over to port. Hoare took advantage of the Marie Claire's concentration on setting Moreau ashore to part company. He slid silently back into the water and swam to the strand as quietly as he could, to cast himself on the mercy of Eleanor Graves. The east was red.
"Well, Mr. Hoare, what next?"
Eleanor Graves had heard enough of Hoare's whispered story. The manservant Tom had at last assured himself that the coatless, unshod, bedraggled figure that had roused him out of his bed and to her doorstep was, indeed, Mr. Hoare. Tom had awakened his mistress and sent the maid Agnes off to help Cook prepare an early breakfast. Now he sat, a mute Jack Horner, in a corner of the drawing room lit by the early morning sun, on guard.
Eleanor Graves was seated on her tuffet. From beneath a sensible, sexless flannel nightgown ten small straight sallow toes peeped out. They made Hoare think of so many inquisitive hatchlings. He felt impelled to comfort them but answered the lady instead.
"It would be futile," he said, "to try persuading Sir Thomas to lend me men to hunt Moreau down."
Eleanor Graves snorted. "Rather, he would hunt you down, pop you into one of his dungeons, and torture you to death. Mr. Morrow-Moreau, I suppose I should call him now-will have spun him an enticing yarn about you by now. And Sir Thomas is sure to have been inveigled. He has taken you into a strong aversion, you know. Any posse comitatus he calls up will be on your trail, not Moreau's. And so?"
Hoare had no handy plan to offer up in reply. He excused himself to himself by reflecting that he had, after all, been awake all night, either towing behind Marie Claire like so much shark bait or hanging from her counter like a six-foot simian. And he was, after all, forty-three years old.
"Think a bit, Mr. Hoare, while I remove my improper person from your sight and make myself as ladylike as I can. Agnes will bring you a breakfast in a moment."
Eleanor Graves rose from her tuffet and went upstairs. She took her toes with her. Hoare was left alone with Tom.
"You could 'scape by hidin' in the mistress's shay," Tom said.
Hoare started out of a doze. "I don't drive. Can you?"
"Not me, Yer Honor. I were no plowboy afore I went into service wi' Doctor, and no ostler. I were a sweep's boy. Doctor saved me balls, 'e did."
Hoare understood. He had learned during one of his snooping ventures that the tarry dust from the flues, up which their masters sent them, coated the orphan lads' immature scrota, generally remaining there, eating away, for months or more between baths. The children generally succumbed to cancerous ulcers before puberty, dying as little eunuchs.
The silence that ensued was broken when the maid Agnes entered with steaming porridge and a plate of crisp bacon for Hoare's breakfast. She set the tray down on her mistress's tuffet.
"There be a man at kitchen doooor," she announced. "Sailor man like. 'E be askin' for Mr. 'Oare." Maidenly, she blushed as she spoke the dirty word. " 'Is name be Stone, 'e sez."
Stone?
"Will you go and inspect him, Tom?" Hoare whispered. "Ask him what Bold looks like. Then come back and tell me what he says."
Tom nodded, preceded Agnes from the room. Too late, Hoare saw what he had just done. Whoever the man at the door was, he would know now that Hoare was within. Damn his sleepy mind.
"'E says Bold be black." In the doorway, Tom looked puzzled.
"Bring him in then, if you please, Tom. He's on my side, and the mistress's."
Stone's face lit up when he saw his officer. He knuckled his forehead. The officer in question was quite sure that his own face lit up as well.
"What fair wind blows you here, Stone?" he asked.
"Me an' Bold, zur, when we sees you left aboard thicky schooner, we sez to each other, we sez, 'Mr. 'Oare'll be off to Weymouth with 'er, and 'e'll be in shoal waters an' on a lee shore.' So we stops up the sweep-ports what you an' I jes' finished a-carvin' in yer yachtet, an' gets 'er under way again. We didn't want to go a-drivin' into Weymouth 'arbor like we owned the place, not wi' thicky schooner already in port, so we sets a course for Ringstead Bay instead.
"Me bein' a native of these 'ere parts," he added.
"Why, you'd be Jonathan Stone's boy Jacob!" Agnes exclaimed. "I be Agnes Dillow. Remember me? Yer ma and mine was gossip!"
"Why, so ye be, miss." Stone knuckled his forehead again. Agnes simpered.
"What then?" Hoare asked. This was no time for courtship on the part of either Hoare's man or Hoare himself.
"Well, zur, we 'auls 'er up on Ringstead shingle, safe as can be, an' then we argies summat about 'oo were to come into Weymouth. I sez I should be the one as coom in, but 'e wants to coom tu, 'e does. But when I tells 'im a black man 'ud stand out in Weymouth town like a negg in a coal'ole, 'e agrees to stand watch by yer yatchet for a day. Then, if nor you nor me shows oop, 'e'll 'aul 'er off, make for Portsmouth, an' make a report to the Admiral. So 'ere I be, zur. I 'opes we done right."
"You have indeed, Stone. God bless you. Tell me, can you drive a carriage by any chance?"
"None better, zur. An' thread a four-in-hand through a needle, fine as any Corinthian up in London."
By the time Eleanor Graves returned below, the three men-Hoare, Stone, and Tom-had devised a plan for the first two to elude Sir Thomas's men, whom Stone had reported were already buzzing about Weymouth like so many bees. No one, it seemed, had been ready to believe that Hoare had obligingly drowned. Hoare wondered why until he thought to inspect his raw, bleeding hands. As soon as the crew saw the scarlet evidence of his secret ride in tow of Marie Claire, they would have gotten word ashore to their master, and Moreau would have run to his crony Sir Thomas.
Mrs. Graves completed the charade for them.
"Stone shall be a messenger from my friend Mrs. Haddaway in Dorchester, with an urgent request for me to come to her aid. He shall drive us in the chaise, and a spare horse can follow us on a lead. It will be the animal on which Stone came to Weymouth. You, Mr. Hoare, shall hide beneath me. There is ample space for you under the seat. Outside town, we will divert to Ringstead, leave Mr. Hoare and Stone, and find a local lad to take us on to Dorchester."
"Then ye'd best name yer friend to me again, ma'am," Stone said. "An' gi' me 'er likeness, tu. If I'm to be ridin' postilion, some'un might be askin' me questions."
Mrs. Graves nodded. "Of course. Haddaway. Mrs. Timothy Haddaway. Emily Haddaway. She's a real person, Stone, my age, twice my size all 'round… two children, little Timothy, the babe, and Arethusa."
Outside the town, the unwelcome batrachian voice of the Knight-Baronet brought the chaise to a halt. Hoare-reasonably comfortable, though coiled like an adder beneath the woman he had come to love-held his breath.
"Why, Sir Thomas!" Mrs. Graves cried. "What are you and your men about, pray? It looks like a posse comitatus, sir, indeed it does."
"About that, Eleanor, my dear. Mr. Morrow brings news that your acquaintance Hoare is a wanted man, a fugitive from the King's justice for the forcible drowning of one of Mr. Morrow's Channel Islanders, seen hereabouts just last night. We're out to take him up. Have you seen him, Eleanor?" Sir Thomas's voice was stern.
"Not for this age, Sir Thomas. Not since we encountered each other after poor Simon-"
"Best take my advice, Eleanor. Should you catch sight of him on your way to-"
"Dorchester, Sir Thomas. Emily Haddaway-you know Emily, of course-sent word that her poor little babe Timothy has the croup, and she wants my advice. I'm sure I don't know why," Eleanor Graves gushed.
"You are a wise, wise woman, Eleanor," Sir Thomas said. "After a proper interval of time, I hope I may wish-"
The listening Hoare never had a chance to learn what Sir Thomas wished for Mrs. Graves, for Stone broke in: "Pardon me, ma'am, but we must get under way if we are to make Dorchester by dark."
" 'Under way,' my man? Why, you sound like a seaman and no postboy."
"Seaman I was, zur, before I swallowed the anchor and took service wi' Mr. Haddaway. But, excuse me, zur…"
Hoare was jarred as the chaise started forward on its delayed way to the pinnace. He gloated quietly at the picture of the chaise, with Stone at its helm, leaving Sir Thomas Frobisher at the post.
At Portsmouth, the sighting of Inconceivable, creeping cautiously across Spit Sand with her sliding keel fully retracted, was instantly reported to Sir George Hardcastle. The Admiral showed himself as merciless as ever. Hoare was to betake himself forthwith to the Admiralty offices, where he was to report his progress-if any-to Sir George. Wrinkled and unkempt though they were, the second-best uniform and hat he carried on Inconceivable would have to do, if he was to persuade the Admiral that he was not habitually slow to obey orders. In that, he failed.
"Late again, Hoare. And filthy, too," Sir George said. "I am quite out of patience with you, I declare."
Hoare quickly summarized for his Admiral his glacial chase of Marie Claire, his brief capture by her owner, his escape from Weymouth. Moment by moment, the Admiral's face grew grimmer.
"No more now, sir," he growled at last. You shall bring that man back here, to justice, dead or alive. Lose not a minute."
"May I enlist reinforcements to bring him in, sir?"
"I have sent my secretary Talthybius to you a number of times, young Hercules," Sir George said, "with one task or another. You are given those tasks because I am confident you will carry them out to my satisfaction. I do not expect you to turn to me with whimpers about how you are to execute each task. I have neither the time nor the inclination to hover over you like a mother hen. I have other tasks of my own to perform, which is why I give yours to you in the first place. Take yourself off, sir and do your duty."
The Admiral's verbal lash notwithstanding, Hoare had another lash to inflict on himself before he was ready to obey his instructions-to take Jaggery. With Jaggery in hand, he was sure, he could complete the investigation with which Sir George Hardcastle had charged him.
Jaggery was not at the Bunch of Grapes. Mr. Greenleaf believed he might be at work in Arrowsmith's warehouse. He gave Hoare directions. To reach the warehouse, Hoare had to pass his own quarters on the way.
The warehouse was nothing more than a series of interconnected sheds that reached from Eastney High Street to the shore. Hoare found no one in the first two sheds and squeezed through a narrow passage into the third. He pulled out his boatswain's call and piped "All Hands!" in the hope that Jaggery, if he was there, would respond by instinct.
The man himself appeared in a crooked doorway at the far end of the enclosure. He looked bewildered.
Anything he might have been saying to Hoare was drowned by a thunderclap behind him, a blast that threw Jaggery forward and Hoare backward. A cloud of fire followed the burst. Behind Jaggery, the shed roof collapsed, and the flames began to get a grip on it. Jaggery lay still, face up on the floor, half-buried in debris.
The choking battle reek of burnt powder filled the place. Hoare coughed, wheezed, and wept as he struggled over the fallen beams in the smoke toward the other man.
Jaggery lay supine, facing what had been the ceiling. From his waist down he was hidden under a massive joist that lay almost level with the bricks of the room's floor. He was breathing hard. From the ruins of the shed Hoare could hear the soft roar of flames as the fire tightened its grip.
"Help me up, Yer Honor. Somethin's holdin' me poor weak legs down an' I can't move 'em. Get it orf me, can't yer?"
Hoare freed a lighter beam and began to search for a spot that offered him leverage room. He found one, set the beam's end under the joist, and heaved down on the beam with all his weight. For all his frantic prying, the joist would not budge. Outside, he heard the jangling of a fire bell. The engine's feeble streams and bucket brigade would do as much good here as two old men in a pissing contest.
Another, smaller explosion sounded in the ruins. A flickering of fire reflected itself in Jaggery's wide eyes, and those eyes filled with fear.
"Smartly, man, can't yer? 'Eave!" he gasped. " 'Eave!"
He choked and grabbed Hoare's shoulder with his free hand. It was the mangled one, but it could still cling to Hoare like a cargo hook.
Five minutes later, the heat of the fire was scorching Hoare's hair. Jaggery blew a pink bubble. It burst in Hoare's face as he stooped, chest heaving.
Jaggery was breathing hard. "I'm a dead man," he said. Hoare could not bring himself to deny it. He rested his hand on the other's shoulder.
"Yer a decent cove, Yer Honor,"Jaggery said at last. "I've no… no mind to be roasted alive. Will yer put me down?"
"If you tell me who 'Himself is. Morrow's boss."
"As Gawd is me witness, I dunno, Yer Honor. Morrow, 'e's the only one what knows his name."
"Why did Kingsley bring one of Morrow's ankers aboard his own ship?" Hoare whispered. "He might as well have shot himself."
Jaggery shook his head. "Kingsley, Yer Honor? 'E didn't take no anker aboard Vantage. I did. Like all the other times, I thought I was slippin' brandy to 'im, for 'im to give to officers that might 'ave interest, to get 'em on 'is side."
The heat was beating on Hoare's face.
"It was only when Kingsley was dead, and Morrow weren't comin' into town no more, that I dared tap one of them ankers. Wouldn't do no 'arm now, I thought, to have a bit of 'is oh-be-joyful. 'Twasn't as though it belonged to no one anymore, bein' as 'e was dead.
"An' look what I tapped into instead. Oh, well, I guess I was dis-
… dis-…"
"Dispensable?"
"Aye. That's the word. Oh, 'urry, sir, 'urry! I can feel the fire on me toes." By now, Jaggery's voice was as faint as Hoare's own whisper.
Hoare could not believe the man, dying though he was. At least one more layer remained in the Jaggery onion.
"You're lying, Jaggery. Tell me the truth, man, or I'll leave you to burn, all by yourself."
Jaggery grunted, was silent. Then he sighed. A pink bubble formed at his mouth and broke. "All right. I knew first thing 'e were up to no good, and I found out what was in them ankers first off. Then I thought, well, I never thought that much of the Navy, and there's me Jenny to be kept safe, so I went along with it. That is the truth, Yer Honor, the whole truth, and nothin' but the truth, so help me God."
At last his words rang true.
"Will ye take care of me Jenny, Yer Honor? She's a good girl, she is, and she'll be a double orphing tomorrer." His eyes stared intently into Hoare's. "We puts up with Greenleaf at 'is Bunch of Grapes."
"I'll do it," Hoare said again. "She'll be brought up a lady."
"Lady, me arse. She's Wet Meg's get, she is, with no lines spoke between us. Just teach the lass to read an' write, will yer? Ye promise?"
"I promise, Jaggery."
"Give her a kiss from her ol' da, then. Uh. Now, do it. Hope it won't be so hot where I'm goin'. Oh, Jesus." Another pink bubble formed and broke.
Apalled at what he must do, Hoare took out his knife, tested the point against his thumb. Leaning away from Jaggery so the man's blood would strike the advancing fire instead of him, he slipped the point between Jaggery's ribs. Jaggery hissed, jerked like a salmon. Soon, the fire already charring his uniform, Hoare closed Jaggery's eyes and backed out of the wreckage. Time was pressing, but his new obligation pressed more heavily.
Jenny Jaggery remembered Hoare. When he told her her Da was dead, she stood thoughtful for a minute.
"I'm a norphing, then, for truth," she said.
"I'm afraid so, child," Hoare replied.
She went to the pallet where she slept and took a small threadbare purse from under the pillow. "Ain't enough here to pay the rent," she said, after counting the contents. "So I might as well start doin' it now. 'Ow do yer want to do it to me, Yer Honor? Be easy on me, will yer? I never done it before."
"You'll not have to 'do it' for anyone till you're grown-up, Jenny," Hoare said, "and not then unless you really want to. I promised your Da I'd take care of you, and that I'm going to do. Get your things together now, and we'll be off."
At first, Mr. Greenleaf appeared reluctant to see Hoare about to vanish with the child, but when Hoare had explained the circumstances and assured him that she would only be moving to the Swallowed Anchor, where he and his good wife could readily reassure themselves of her well-being, he released her into Hoare's keeping with a smile and a ha'penny.
Hoare turned his tubular charge and her pitiful bundle of belongings over to the pink girl Susan at the Swallowed Anchor, telling her to feed the child and find her a corner she could call her own. Jenny took Susan's hand readily enough but looked over her shoulder at Hoare.
"Wait," he whispered. "I forgot. Your Da gave me a packet of kisses for you, and told me to give you one every night when you go to bed.
"Here's for tonight." He bent over and kissed Jenny's cool, round forehead. It was a new experience, for him at least. "Off you go, child."
Susan came downstairs after a while. "She's sleepin' peaceful, sir," she told Hoare. "She didn't even 'ave no dolly, so I give her the one I had when I were her age, an' she cuddled up with it as nice as could be."
She paused and looked down at Hoare.
"If it ain't presumptive of me to ask, sir," she said, "what are yer plans for 'er? She seems like a good little mite."
"To tell the truth, Susan," he replied, "I haven't thought it through. She's Janus Jaggery's child, you know."
"Well, Janus Jaggery may have been a bad man, but he weren't a bad man, sir, if you catch my meaning. Now, you don't really want to set up to be a da to her, do you? You never struck me as a marryin' man, an' she orter have a mam." Susan's look grew speculative.
"We'll just have to see, Susan," Hoare said thoughtfully. "Meanwhile, take good care of her."
That done, Hoare was ready to see that Edouard Moreau was brought to the King's justice. For this, there was again not a moment to be lost-though, Hoare confessed, he himself had wasted several precious hours in dealing with the Jaggery child.
The arrest of Moreau would be a personal pleasure, but Hoare would be exceeding his brief by thinking to command the expedition it would apparently require. Besides his disaffected French-Canadians, Moreau could well have other English renegades at his disposal as well-Irish irredentists, too, perhaps, ready to avenge Wolfe Tone. Yet, whether he would be exceeding his brief or not, Hoare wanted to be in on the kill, in person. The stink of the vanished Vantage was still fresh in his nose.
How was he to go about it? A more tactful officer than himself-one who had kept on good terms with Sir Thomas Frobisher instead of near-hostility-could simply call on the baronet for a force of his watch, march up the long slope from Weymouth town under the eyes of Moreau, cut him out from among some sixteen men, and haul him away. In doing so, this more tactful officer would, of course, have no difficulty in persuading Moreau not to put an end to him with the Kentucky rifle he had stolen, as he had done with at least two victims-Kingsley and Dr. Graves.
Moreover, the man behind Moreau-Fortier s and Jaggery's "Himself," lurking in the shadows of the case-might still be in the offing with reinforcements for the defense of his man Moreau. Then again, maybe not.
The Marine division headquartered in Portsmouth, Hoare remembered as he went, included-as well as nearly fifty companies of infantry and batteries of artillery-a troop of hybrid creatures. Half soldier, half sailor, half cavalrymen, they were called "Horse Marines." These military chimeras served as outlying guards on the landward side of Portsmouth. On their rounds, they kept an eye peeled for seamen and fellow Marines seeking to disappear into the countryside. They were a despised laughingstock-military bastards-about whom ribald jigs had been circulating for years.
Hoare had met two of their officers, including their captain, not so long ago and taken their part in a dispute with certain regular hussars. It was to their corner of the Marine barracks that he went. He hoped their captain-a John Jinks, if he remembered correctly-would be at hand and that he would respond to Hoare's appeal for armed support.
Captain Jinks was both present and complaisant. "It'll give the lazy rascals a jaunt," he said. Within minutes, Hoare was jouncing out of town on a borrowed charger beside Captain Jinks, his troop of Horse Marines jingling behind him.
A day and a half later, the troop trotted through a mizzle of chilly rain and crested the Purbeck Downs beside Morrow's quarry. There a dozen men or more, variously armed, blocked the narrow paved roadway into Weymouth, up and down which Hoare had plodded before, to be insulted and rebuffed by Morrow and Sir Thomas Frobisher. At their head, Sir Thomas himself sat a handsome eighteen-hand horse-an Irish hunter, Hoare hazarded to himself. Another horseman flanked Sir Thomas.
"Halt right there, you troop of sleazy imitation soldiers," Sir Thomas Frobisher said. "How dare you trespass on Frobisher land without my say-so?"
"I don't know that I care for the way you describe my Marines, sir," Captain Jinks retorted. "In any case, we bring a warrant for the arrest of one Edouard Moreau, alias Edward Morrow, on charges of treason, et cetera, et cetera. Stand aside, please."
"Show your warrant, sir," Sir Thomas said. His bandy, froggy legs barely reached below his mount's barrel. Captain Jinks turned to Hoare, as did Sir Thomas, who looked at Hoare with extreme distaste.
"You again, fellow," he said, his voice oozing contempt. "I told you I'd have you horsewhipped if I laid eyes on you again on my manor."
"I think not, sir," Hoare whispered. "Here is the warrant. I think you will find it quite in order." He held the document up.
"Well, fellow? Give it to me," Sir Thomas ordered.
"I think not, sir," Hoare repeated. "You may advance as far as you must in order to read it."
"Never mind," Sir Thomas said. "I did not sign it, and I am the law of this land. You can go to hell, and take your fornicatin' document with you."
"The warrant is signed and sealed by the Marquess of Blandford, sir, as you can plainly see. As I need not tell you, he is Lord Lieutenant of this county." Hoare hoped that Sir Thomas would stop arguing and decide either to resist this troop of mounted Marines or to obey his Lord Lieutenant. He felt himself running out of whisper.
Sir Thomas muttered a few words to his fellow horseman, who spurred his animal at a furious, foolhardy pace down the hill toward the town. With no good will, he gestured to his other followers to clear the road. He himself sat his horse, fuming, while the red-coated troop filed past him like a martial hunt passing in review before their Master of Fox Hounds. At the tail of the last trooper, Hoare doffed his hat and bowed silently in his saddle to the baronet. He was crotch-weary and glad to be ending his eighty-mile journey. It had rained all the way.
Moreau was not at the offices of his quarry. At the door of the house at the top of the zigzag road that led down to the town, Moreau's manservant shook his head.
"You'll not find the master here," he said. " 'E's gorn."
"We'll see about that," Captain Jinks replied grimly. "Sergeant MacNab!"
"Sah?"
"Take four men. Station one at each door of the house. Search the house for our man. You'll remember the description given you last night by Mr. Hoare."
"Sah!"
One of the troopers failed to suppress a guffaw. Sergeant MacNab turned on him.
"Silence, man! Twa days o' muckin' oot the stables forrr ye!"
The rest of the troop jogged carefully on down the turnpike, behind Hoare and their captain. They spurned the outraged tollbooth keeper and proceeded into town.
Waving frantically, the maid Agnes stood at Mrs. Graves's front door as the troop clattered up.
"She's gone to keep an eye on Mr. Morrow on the shore!" Agnes cried. " 'You'll find him at Portland Bill,' she says I was to tell you, 'where you and I drove off his men together'!"
Once off the smooth blocks of the street and down on the shingle, Jinks set the troop to a canter-but not for long, as first one horse and then another went lame, victims of the treacherous cobbles.
"It ain't the 'untin' that 'urts the 'orse; it's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'ighway," Captain Jinks reminded Hoare out of the side of his mouth.
When they rounded a small point of the cliff, the troop's leaders could see Moreau, alone, heaving a shallop toward the surf. It might well have been the very shallop that had sheltered Eleanor Graves from her assailants that first afternoon. The wind was easterly and gusty, the clouds heavier than they had been on that first occasion. Perhaps a quarter-mile offshore, Marie Claire lay hove to, her foresail backed, tossing in the first line of breakers. Hoare handed the warrant to Captain Jinks. Let him do the shouting.
Jinks deployed his men. A sudden rain squall hid Marie Claire, then swept across the waves toward them.
"Edouard Moreau, alias Edward Morrow," Jinks cried, "I have here a warrant for your arrest on charges of treason! Advance and surrender!" He gestured to his men to spread out along the stony beach and take aim.
"I'll be damned if I do!" Moreau shouted.
"Surrender, or we fire!"
Moreau continued to shove at the skiff. The curtain of rain squall struck. Marie Claire vanished behind it. It drove down on the waiting troop, bent on soaking the carbines' priming powder.
"Fire!" Captain Jinks cried.
Two carbines went off. Three misfired with faint, wet sounds. Hoare dismounted and began to plod wearily toward Moreau along the shingle, turning an ankle at every third step.
"You'll never make it through the surf, you fool," he whispered to the metis, knowing well that his words would be lost within inches of his mouth.
Moreau did not even turn. He had the shallop afloat at last. He heaved it into the sea until the first surf foamed around his knees, drew himself aboard it, and set the oars in their tholepins. Looking over his shoulder every few strokes to see that he was on course for Marie Claire, he began to pull for her. The Canadian handled his oars as well as any Coastguardsman.
In the offing, Hoare saw a pair of men clamber over the schooner's side into a small boat and cast off, towing a light line behind them. They were still beyond the breakers.
Hoare reached into one deep pocket for his first pistol. He hoped it was dry. Using his left arm as a rest, he took careful aim at the oarsman and fired. Hoare could not see where his ball went. He found his second pistol, took and held a breath, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon sputtered, hung fire, and destroyed a wave top. Taking another stroke, Moreau grinned mirthlessly at him over his oars.
There came a whicker overhead, and a sling-stone clipped a wave top beyond Moreau's shoulder. Turning, Hoare saw Eleanor Graves on the low cliff above him, astride a Downs pony. She was bareback, her thighs exposed to the rain, her hair mingled with the beast's shaggy mane. She had loaded another stone into her sling.
The second stone took off one of the shallop's starboard thole pins. Moreau caught a crab with his starboard oar. The shallop swerved and broached to, just in time to catch a breaking sea broadside. The sea poured aboard it over the gunwales. She swamped and lurched heavily to leeward.
Moreau went overboard into the boil. He was out of his depth, for his head disappeared. When he came to the surface again, his clutch missed the shallop's gunwale by no more than a finger. A crosscurrent caught the boat and began to edge it away, leaving Moreau to struggle after it, losing a tantalizing inch or two with every stroke.
In his mind's eye Hoare could see the burnt and mangled men of Vantage, with those of Scipio and the other vessels Moreau and his minions had destroyed. The man had put paid to upward of a thousand loyal English sailors. Hoare would be damned if he would let him drown peaceably. He kicked off his shoes and waded into the surf until he was waist deep. He looped his belt knife's lanyard over his wrist and dove forward into the surf, his hat carrying away somewhere into the windy darkness. He let the knife drag behind him so that he could put the full force of both arms into his stroke.
As Moreau struggled seaward toward his schooner, he had turned his back to Hoare, whose sudden grip on his coat took him unaware. Hoare climbed up the other's sunken back and forced his head into the water.
Moreau twisted in Hoare's arms, gripped both ears, and pulled his head forward. His teeth gnashed at Hoare's nose, clenched into it hard. Hoare let him gnash. He let go of the metis with both hands and pulled the sheath-knife into reach by its lanyard. He jabbed it forward and felt it sink into some soft part of Moreau's midsection.
Moreau's mouth opened in a gasp, releasing Hoare's nose and sucking in water. Hoare shook his head and twisted the knife in Moreau's body, withdrew it, stabbed again at random. Moreau rolled over. His eyes opened wide, staring into Hoare's. The metis gave a choked cry and grimaced, spewing bloody water through his teeth into Hoare's face. Hoare let go of the knife, pulled his enemy's head underwater by his coarse, clubbed black hair, and bore down on top of him. Moreau sank under him, bubbled, and died-whether by drowning or from his knife wounds Hoare never knew and never cared.
Hoare could see the shallop rocking, logy and tantalizing, still just out of reach as if it were alive and viciously teasing. He took a firmer grip of Moreau's hair, rolled over on his back, and began to tow him ashore through the surf.
Beyond the breakers, the hands left in Marie Claire hauled their shipmates back aboard. Before Hoare had struggled ashore with his captive's body, the schooner was under way under reefed fore and mainsails, making seaward toward France.
Eleanor Graves clambered off her pony and down the cliff-side path, to look down at Hoare as he gasped above his victim, bleeding from his torn nose.
"Well done," she said. "I would happily have crippled him and delivered him to the Navy's mercy, but I would not have wished another man's death on my conscience. The one- Dugas, the leader of my attackers-was enough."
"You didn't kill Dugas," Hoare whispered. "Someone smothered him to death."
Her eyes lit up. "Then I could have killed Morrow after all," she said. "He came to my house in the rain after you and your man Stone left in the chaise. He stunned poor Tom with a club, forced himself into my presence, and threatened to kill both Agnes and Tom if I did not hand over Simon's papers. So I did.
"He leafed through them, but found nothing. Could he have supposed I would have given him them all without a fight? It did not come to that, for one of his men stormed in to warn him of your coming and he fled without harming any of us further. I followed him on Rosie here.
"Take him away now, with my compliments to the Navy."
She turned away, climbed slowly back up the cliff path to her waiting pony Rosie, while Hoare, with the help of one of the Horse Marines, loaded the body onto a spare mount.