Jane and the Ghosts of Netley

Chapter 29 What the Lascar Saw

5 November 1808, cont.

“Is that Dixon’s Lascar?” Frank asked me in surprise. “I have seen him some once or twice, at the Itchen Dockyard.”

“But what has brought him here?” I whispered. Lord Harold stepped forward. “Good evening, my good man. I must beg to defer our conversation until tomorrow. I and my friends are about to quit this place on a matter of pressing business.”

“My business is also urgent, m’lord,” Jeremiah said. “You will remember that when most honoured Dixon was killed, you said I am to come to you with informations? And you so kindly honoured me with your card, and the direction of this inn?”

“I remember.” Lord Harold glanced about; the curious eyes of the ostlers were trained upon our party. “Lower your voice, man. There are ears everywhere, and some of them unfriendly.”

“Well I know it. But I come to you now, and not to the fool of a magistrate, who cannot catch a hare when it pilfers his garden.”

“You have learned something to the purpose?”

Lord Harold enquired.

“I have seen the very man! The villain in a cloak who slit old Dixon’s throat!”

“Where, for the love of God?”

“At the Itchen dock. He crept in by cover of darkness, not half an hour since, and made off with a skiff. There were several small boats, you see, undamaged by the fires; and it is a small matter to drag a skiff over the lock and launch it in the river.”

“And this he did?”

The Lascar nodded. “When he had gone, and I was sure to be safe, I looked out over the lock itself. He went downriver, in the direction of Southampton Water.”

“And thence to the sea,” Frank muttered in frustration.

“You’re certain it was the same man?” Lord Harold demanded. “The one you espied from your rooftop last week, when the seventy-four was fired?”

“Certain as I breathe, sir.” Jeremiah shuddered.

“Thanks be to Vishnu that he did not observe me — that he did not know I was alone in the yard — for certain sure he’d have treated me to a taste of his knife.”

Lord Harold clapped the fellow on the back and reached for his wallet. “Our thanks, Jeremiah. Pray accept my first payment towards the restoration of the yard. And walk with care tonight: there are others who carry knives. Into the gig, my friends! We waste the hour!”

• • •

It was clear to us all that Mr. Ord was now immaterial; it was his companion in the dark cloak we desperately sought, and his decision to move by water must be instructive. He had long made a habit of lurking in one spot: the subterranean passage beneath Netley Abbey. We abandoned all notion of holding vigil near the Vine Inn, and made directly for the Itchen ferry, and the road towards the ruins.

“If he intends to embark for the Americas,” Lord Harold said grimly, “then we must assume that the firing of a lanthorn signal is his purpose tonight. He shall make by water for the Abbey tunnel, and achieve the turret stair undetected. Once the signal is given, he will be joining Ord — and bent upon the Portsmouth road.”

“We must not allow the devil to light his lamps,”

Frank said, “for then the attack shall be set in train!”

“Pray God we are not too late!”

Lord Harold lashed the horses with his whip, and subsided into silence, while the gig — poorly sprung and exposed to the night air — rattled hell-bent for the River Itchen. There we were in luck; the ferry stood ready and waiting on the Southampton side; and after a tedious interval when I thought I should scream aloud with impatience, the barge bumped against the nether shore. My brother sprang immediately to the bank. We surged up the hill, and clattered through Weston — a sleepy hamlet sparked by a few fires — and then, as we achieved West Woods, Lord Harold slowed the team to a walk.

“We must go quietly now, and secure the gig at the far edge of this copse,” he murmured. “Jane — will you remain with the horses, while we walk the final half-mile?”

“Never, sir.”

Frank snorted aloud. “Jane and horseflesh do not suit, my lord. It is useless to persuade her.”

The trees thinned; the darkness that encroached in the heavy wood, lightened ahead; and there, against the night sky, loomed the tumbled ruin of rock.

“No moon,” Lord Harold muttered. “We divide the advantage thus: his movements are hidden; but so are ours.”

He halted the gig, and Frank jumped down. In a trice, the horses were hobbled and a rock placed behind the wheels. Lord Harold drew a flat wooden case from the rear of the equipage: his matched set of duelling pistols. One he secured in his coat; the other he handed silently to Frank; and so we set off. Did the stolen skiff nose against the cliff’s foot below? Or had the Jesuit beached it already, and entered the subterranean passage? Would he move with ease, confident that his plans were undetected?

We came upon the Abbey from the rear; the turret stair, blasted and exposed to the elements, rose up on the forward side. The ground was everywhere uneven, and I dreaded lest I should stumble in the course of that last treacherous walk; but the thought had no sooner entered my mind, than Lord Harold’s hand was extended, and silently gripped my own. And so we went on, Frank to the fore and our breathing almost suspended, so desperately did we guard our progress, until my brother stopped short and held out his hand.

“Look!”

Light had blazed forth from the blasted walls above us, shining vivid as a beacon through the surrounding dark. No candle-flame that might flicker and burn out, but a lanthorn fueled by whale-oil. It burned straight and true, and might draw one eye, or many, trained upon it from the Dibden shore. We stared in horror, and then Lord Harold began to run. He had seen, as a darker shape against the night sky, the figure of a man — distorted, perhaps, by shadow and cloak, but unmistakable in its movements. My brother and I followed in an instant, but my stays prevented me from achieving the necessary exertion, and I soon fell back. My eyes were fixed, however, upon the turret’s heights — and I saw that the Enemy in the cloak had been alerted to the sound of pursuit — footsteps rang on stone — he whirled about wildly, but escape was closed to him: Lord Harold had gained the ramparts.

I saw him outlined in the glare of the signal lamp. His right arm rose, and levelled the pistol; he uttered a harsh command; and then the lanthorn shattered under the impact of the lead ball. In the sudden eclipse of darkness, I thought that Lord Harold staggered — that he sank sharply against the wall where two figures grappled as one — and that the cloaked figure then hurled himself at the turret stair. A second shot rang out before me: Frank must have achieved the turret — but what, oh, Heaven, was the issue of the mad engagement?

And why did the huddled form on the walls not rise, and give pursuit?

With a sob tearing at my throat — ignorant of pain or breathlessness — I ran as though the hounds of Hell were upon my heels. Through the blasted kitchen garden and past the tunnel’s mouth — through the buttery and refectory and the south transept of the church — and there, at the foot of the stair, stood my brother, a spent pistol in his hand. Darkness welled in the ruins at night; I strained to discern the tumbled form at Frank’s feet. It was the cloaked and lifeless figure of a man. He had fallen from the stair’s height, and landed upon his face. Frank knelt and turned him to the sky.

“Orlando,” I whispered.