I drew back swiftly to the cave's interior, awaiting with bated breath the men's progress down the shingle; and clenched involuntarily at the rock wall to my back. The voices were approaching, amidst the tramp of heavy feet; their purpose was certain, and unswayed by any diversion, despite the fog of spirits that hobbled them. And so with suspended breath, and hands thrust behind to break any fall, I began to step noiselessly back into the cave. For I knew with a certainty that the men's object was my very place of hiding — and that all flight to the fore should be impossible.

Chapter 13

Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax

20 September 1804, cont.

A BEAM OF LIGHT DANCED IN THE CAVE'S MOUTH, AND I HELD MY breath, feeling my way backwards. One of the men — he who had earlier produced the bottle — had lit a lanthorn as they approached, and it was this that swung its welling arc of illumination ever closer to my feet. I took yet another step back, and felt my boot heel butt up against something hard — not the cave's nether wall, thank God, but the cool dampness of a very large boulder. I ducked around it, the better to afford myself protection, and found a narrow space behind just capable of admitting my form. Providence had not entirely abandoned me.

“Give us the bottle, Dickie boy,” said a high-pitched, sneering voice; and with a guttural oath, his companion complied. The chink of glass against the lanthorn's metal, as the spirits changed hands; and then the contemptible sound of liquid coursing down a vulgar throat. ‘? ‘ates the very sight o’ such dank and nasty places, I do. I still says we should'uv gone ‘round by the ‘igh road. It's perishin’ dark and wet in ‘ere.”

The Ianthorn's light careened wildly up the rock wall opposite, and I assumed that Dickie had cuffed his partner about the head — which supposition was confirmed not an instant later by a howl of pain.

“‘Ere, now, what's the cause o’ that?”

“I told you afore to shut up, Eb. Now shut up, I say. We've serious business above, and it's as much as our necks are worth, if the Reverend finds out.”

“‘E's not a-goin’ to find out,” the man called Eb rejoined, in a wounded tone, ‘less you tells ‘im, or I tells ‘im, and that's not a-goin’ to ‘appen. We're snug coves, and do things proper. Care for a nip?”

“Put it away and stow your gaff.” The light swung towards my place of hiding, and the tramp of feet approached; I could not prevent myself from cowering, I fear, in the recognition that I should be considered a terrible risk to the two, did they discover me. As the larger of the men — the one called Dick — passed within inches of my face, I closed my eyes in the certainty that I had been discovered; but he must have looked neither to the right nor the left, and eventually, the sound of footsteps ceased. I opened my eyes, but stayed still where I stood, my ears straining for the slightest sound.

The ring of metal on stone, and a lowering of the light; Dick had set the Ian thorn down. A grunt of exertion, and a stifled oath from Eb, and then the squeak of poorly-oiled hinges — the men had heaved open a door! A passage must exist, hewn through the very rock, and leading deep into the downs. My heartbeat quickened, for I knew the men should toil onwards, leaving the cavern in peace; and the way to freedom and the road for Lyme should be entirely at liberty.

What an agony of conflicting impulses then assailed me! Though a heroine of Mrs. Radcliffe's or Charlotte Smith's should have gone determinedly through the door, and hazarded the horrors of the darkened tunnel without a backwards glance, I confess that I thought first of my deserted bed in Wings cottage, and the warmth of its quilts, and the comforting embrace of sleep. I longed to abandon the chase for another day, when Dick and Eb should be far from my thoughts and my person, and the chalk cliffs of Charmouth wear a happier aspect, in being gilded with September sun.

But Geoffrey Sidmouth had not the luxury of deferring what should be distasteful; to him there remained but a few days, before the coroner's parade of guilt; and I recollected that my object in journeying to the shingle tonight had been to learn something of the Reverend, in the desperate hope that he and Sidmouth were not one and the same. That hope was all but diminished — for Dick had invoked the Reverend's very name, and his familiarity with such a tunnel, placed at the Grange's foot, bore a decidedly unpleasant construction. If I was to learn the worst, then, and abandon all faith in Sidmouth, it must be effected here and now; I had no choice but to go on, when every fibre of my being screamed that I should turn back.

With indrawn breath and a quickened pulse, therefore, I ventured to place my foot before the sheltering rock, and eased myself back into the cavern's depths. A lighter darkness, and the stirring of air before me, showed the way to the shingle, and home; but with a pang, I turned my back upon escape and sought the nether wall.

I could discern nothing like the outline of a door; and feeling with trembling fingers across the rock face, I encountered something so squeamishly clinging and moist, that I nearly forgot myself and cried aloud, snatching my hands away in an instant. A nauseous smell, as of decaying fish — and I knew the stuff to be nothing more than seaweed, fresh from the shingle and rendered wet by the trickle of moisture that emanated ceaselessly from the rock walls on every side. An effective disguise, indeed, for a passage one does not wish discovered — for the casual observer should never surmise that a door lay behind, and an idle explorer should be immediately deterred by the stench and touch of the stuff. I drew breath, and the tremor in my limbs subsided; and in another instant, I had steeled myself to touch the foul weeds, and feel beyond them for the rough wood of the door. The latch was there, and mindful of the creaking hinges that had alerted me to the door's presence in the first place, I eased it open but a few inches, and squeezed myself inside.

The dimmest pinpoint of light before me, revealed Dick and Eb to have made considerable progress; and I immediately followed in their wake, thrusting all fears and doubts behind me in the distracting activity of my purpose. The tunnel's floor was uneven, and a sudden dip in its surface, or a sharp incline, could all but cause me to tumble; I turned my ankles too frequently for notice, and clutched at the walls to either side, being deprived of the steady lanthorn that must so comfort the ruffians before. A very few moments, however, and I wished even for the faint pinpoint first detected — for the tunnel must have turned, and the men and their light were hidden from view.

I toiled onwards, climbing ever more surely, until I came to a flight of rough steps; and eased my way up them, uncertain when the tunnel floor should resume.

“Eh, there, Eb, you've stepped on my foot,” a harsh voice muttered, almost before me; and I crouched as swiftly as I knew how, hugging the very step — for at the stairs’ end stood my two guides, and from the sound of their laboured breathing and puffs of effort, another tunnel door.

After some moments, it must have swung open, and the fellows were passed through, for with a snick! the tunnel was thrown in utter darkness, the encouraging lanthorn having vanished behind the door.

I climbed stealthily to the stairs” head, and took but a few steps until the tunnel's end was reached; and then, groping forward, I found a decidedly smooth wooden surface, and traced with my fingers the outline of a door-jamb; but no latch or keyhole could I find. The way was barred to me.

I swallowed hard, and turned about in confusion, and endeavoured not to consider the more usual inhabitants of such a subterranean passage — the scuttling rats, and the creeping spiders, of enormous size, that undoubtedly traversed the walls at either hand, or such nameless creatures as must give rise to shuddering dread — and wished fervently that I had chosen the cowardly way, of my bed at Wings cottage. For to what purpose had I journeyed so far, in the grip of such anxiety, if the men were now gone before, and the passage closed?