Читать книгу The Gentleman - Alfred Ollivant - Страница 27

The mist was blowing by in huge white puffs like the breath of a giant.

"That was the beginning," continued Reuben. "It warn't the end though not by no means. Many's the time since then them words of his about the blockade-chaps, and his queer way o sayin em's come back to me."

"Why?" asked the boy.

"Why, sir?—why, indeed?—Two days later a patrol was found at the foot o the Devil's Chimney, heads bashed in. Blow'd over o course!—Week a'terwards petty officer found drowned in dew-pond top o Warren Hill. Accident o course!—Next day common seaman hung in his own braces Jevington Holt. Suicide o course! And so it's been going on ever since—blockade-men murdered; blockade-men missin; blockade-men washed ashore—until last night."

"What then?"

"Ain't you heard, sir?" aghast. "Last night—eleven o'clock—full moon—clear as crystal—Diamond laid the Kite aboard the Revenue cutter off Darby's Hole."

"Well?" breathlessly.

"Ah, well indeed, sir!—No one'll ever knaw the rights o that yarn. Only one chap o the crew o the Curlew left alive to tell the tale—poor Alf Huggett here alongside o me. Stove in a water-butt and hid in it—didn't you, Alf?"

There was a waiting silence.

"It's broke him up surely, sir," whispered Reuben. "And I don't wonder. Saw enough through that bung-hole to keep him thinking for the rest of his life."

"Fat George!" shivered a thin voice. "Fat George!"

"Ah!" came the windy chorus. "Him and old Toadie!"

"Anyways there it be!" continued Reuben. "At noon to-day the Curlew drifted up against Seaford jetty, yards hung with her own crew, like carcasses in a butcher's shop."

"Brutes!" gasped the boy. "But what's the meaning of it all?"

Reuben shrugged till his oil-skins crackled.

"No sayin, sir. Summat's up; summat big. Diamond wanted the coast cleared; and he's cleared it—by thunder he has! Swep it up bald as the back o my hand."

The mist blew away faint and thin. Through it the bowed crest-line of a cliff loomed up to larboard.

"There's the last o the Seven Sisters!" said Reuben. "Birling Gap's just here along." He moved among his men. "Stations, boys. It's here or hereabouts. … "

"Hush!" whispered Kit.