The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence Page B

again.
    “There’s a ship in the bay.”

Chapter 9

A S HIP E MBAYED
    I climbed up onto the top of the cromlech, onto the thick stone roof of the tomb. I stared into the wind until my eyes stung, but I could see no sign of a ship.
    “We’re too far from the sea,” said Mary. She wouldn’t climb up; she stood off a few yards, only a shadow at the edge of the darkness.
    “I might see her topsails,” I said. “Topgallants if she’s big enough.” They would rise above the cliffs like huge, floating birds.
    “It’s too far!”
    “Not if she’s right at the cliffs. She might be aground.”
    “No!” said Mary. “Only two shots. Three is a ship coming ashore. Four is a wreck.” In the wind, her voice was faint and high, the voice of a small girl. “John, hurry!”
    I turned to leave. And in the action, the turning away, I saw the sail.
    “There she is!” I cried. It took shape to the south, a tierof canvas like a stack of child’s blocks. Topsails and topgallants and royals. A full-rigged ship. “Mary, come look.”
    But she wouldn’t come closer. I tried to fix a bearing on it, a course from the house. Then I scrambled down from the slab. And Mary was gone.
    “Mary!” I shouted.
    “Here!” she said. “Hurry.”
    I couldn’t see her. I followed the sound, over the brow of the knoll, into the gloom of the valley. “Hurry!” she said, and I ran straight down the slope. But I’d gone only a dozen steps when a hand grabbed my ankle and I tumbled to the ground.
    I cried out.
    “Shhh! Someone’s coming,” said Mary.
    It was a man on a horse, and he rode at a gallop the same way we’d come. A dark shape on the moor, then a silhouette on the ridge, he came with a snorting and a hammer of hooves. Across the sky he rode, a black thing tattered and torn, a cape flowing back. Straight to the cromlech, to that ancient stone tomb.
    The horse reared up, and he slid from its back to the ground. I felt Mary’s arm fall across my shoulder as she pushed me down in the grass.
    “He mustn’t see us,” she whispered.
    “Who is it?”
    “I think it’s—I can’t really tell.”
    The horse was between us and the rider. We could see the man’s legs below its belly, nothing more than that. He strode to the cromlech and climbed up the loose stack of rocks.
    “He’s going inside,” I said.
    “No one,” said Mary, “would dare go in there.”
    The horse lowered its head and nibbled at the grass. It stepped forward, reins swinging loose. Only one step, and it went no farther.
    We could hear a clattering sound, metal on metal. Then the grinding of boots tramping on stone. And a gust of wind howled through the cromlech like the cries of lost souls.
    In a moment the man reappeared. But still we could see no more than his legs, until he came right to the horse and climbed up in the saddle. And then he was like a silvery trace, like a thing not quite there. He was holding something bulky and square, and he balanced it before him as he grabbed up the reins and put his heels to the horse. He swung it round.
    “Can you see who it is?” I asked.
    “I can’t be sure,” said Mary. “But it looks like Uncle Simon.”
    Whoever it was, he rode off even faster than he’d come, over the knoll and straight to the south, to the sea.
    “Come on!” said Mary. But I was already on my feet. And when we ran off in different directions, we both stopped and looked back in surprise.
    “Where are you going?” she asked.
    “To the cromlech,” I said.
    “Why?”
    “We have to see what’s inside.”
    Mary was horrified. “You can’t go in there,” she said.
    “We have to see.”
    I started up, and she came at my heels. “Please, John. It’s cursed. Go in there and you’ll die.”
    I kept walking. Even when Mary grabbed me I kept going. She fell on the ground behind me, pleading, reaching with her hand. But I went straight to the cromlech, and straight inside.
    The wind whirled through the tomb. And a strange green