A New Dawn Over Devon (2 page)

1762

A thick mist blanketed the southern coast of Devon.

It was exactly this kind of night smugglers hoped for—to land, unload their goods, and escape back into the south channel without detection. Being caught meant the gallows. It was worth waiting for the fog.

Two daring lads crouched on a high bluff gazing down toward the rocky water's edge, well bundled and anticipating what adventure the night might bring. Whether they were afraid, neither would admit to the other. Bravado and daring formed the creed of such youth.

Both bore names of distinction in southwest England. But their fathers' reputations provided few thrills. Discovering the identity of the fabled smuggler known as the Devonshire Bandit, and who his accomplices onshore might be, offered a challenge they could not resist. What they would do with the information neither had paused to ask. That there was a secret to be discovered, knowledge of which was accompanied by no little danger, was incentive enough to stir the blood of any teen boy.

The sixteen-year-old was a Rutherford of Heathersleigh. His eighteen-year-old companion, and the chief instigator of the clandestine plot, was a Powell of Holsworthy.

They had arrived two hours before and by now were shivering in the night chill.

“I've had enough,” said young Rutherford in exasperation. “We've got the wrong spot. There's nobody within miles of here but the gulls.”

He rose and took several steps inland in the direction they had come. As he did he began raising the wick of his lantern.

“Wait—I think I see something!” whispered Powell. “Douse that light.”

Rutherford quickly turned the lantern down and knelt again at his companion's side squinting into the fog.

“A ship is coming,” said Powell. “I hear creaking, and water splashing against wood. Hand me the glass.”

He took it, put the telescope to his eye, and peered through the fog.

“Too dark and misty,” he said. “I can't make out a thing.”

“Let's climb down for a closer look.”

Leaving telescope and lanterns out of sight where they were, they rose and carefully scrambled over the rocky incline, being careful to send no stones tumbling ahead of them into the water giving warning of their approach. Halfway down they paused, listening through the night.

“I hear something too,” whispered Rutherford. “Was that a voice?”

“Sounded like it.”

“Can you see anything?”

“Not yet. We've got to get lower.”

“How deep is the water here?”

“Deep. And it's high tide—they'll come all the way to shore. They say the Spanish landed spies in this cove two hundred years ago during Drake's time.”

Again they began climbing down. Gruff voices could be heard, muted through the fog, but unmistakable now.

Suddenly the huge ghostly outline of a ship's prow, masts reaching high into the blackness above, came into sight less than two hundred feet in front of them.

Whispered exclamations of shock and momentary terror escaped their lips. They had no idea the ship was so close. It looked as though they could reach out and touch it! Dim figures moved about on deck, with ropes and disembarking planks at the ready, while a half-dozen burly sailors wielded long poles to steady their movement and ease the ship's approach to the shoals.

“What is that they're speaking?” whispered Rutherford at his friend's ear. “I can't make out a word of it.”

Powell listened a moment.

“By all the—!” He swore under his breath. “They're Turks. It's not the Bandit at all!”

“Pirates!”
exclaimed Rutherford, rising to his feet.

“Shut up and stay where you are!” said Powell, laying a restraining hand on his friend's arm and pulling him back down.

“We've got to get out of here!”

“They're too close. They'll be landing below us in less than two minutes. If we try to make for the top now, they'll hear us for sure, then come after us and slit our throats.”

“But—”

“Just sit down and keep your mouth closed,” said Powell in an urgent whisper. “If we don't make a move, they'll never know we're here.”

Moments later the leading edge of the hull thudded against the shoreline. A few shouts followed. The boys heard a scurrying of movement and ropes and planks and jumping and strange shouts in Arabic as the crew secured the vessel. Within minutes a line of dark-skinned thieves began streaming back and forth between ship and shore carrying crates and boxes.

“What are they doing?” whispered Rutherford into his companion's ear.

“Unloading some kind of cargo. I can't tell what. They must be stashing it somewhere down there.”

They could make out little through the foggy blackness, only the tramping of feet back and forth across the planks, evil-sounding voices, and the movement of dim shadows. They sat shivering and motionless for an hour.

Gradually it became clear the operation was nearing completion. As suddenly as they had come, they now quickly withdrew the planks and heaved the ropes on board. The pikemen again took their positions and leaned heavily against their poles. Inch by inch the great vessel separated from the rocks.

“Are they leaving?” whispered Rutherford anxiously.

“Looks like it. The tide's probably about to turn.”

“I'm heading back to the top!”

“No—wait till they're gone.”

Gradually the sight of the ship receded mysteriously and silently into the mist. When they heard no more, Powell rose and motioned for his friend to follow. Carefully they crept back up to the bluff.

“I'm getting out of here!” said Rutherford, pausing to pick up his lantern where he had stashed it behind some large stones.

“What are you talking about?” rejoined Powell. “We're safe now. Let's wait till first light and see what we can find.”

“Are you crazy? What if one of them stayed behind to guard the loot?”

“Have it your way, but I'm staying.”

Powell lay down and covered himself with his overcoat. Rutherford hesitated a moment. As afraid as he was of the pirates, he was just as uneasy about heading back out across the Devonshire downs alone. He knew someone would come after the stash, and probably soon. He didn't want to meet them. Reluctantly he sat down with a sigh. Fitfully both boys dozed off.

When Rutherford next became aware of himself, the thin grey light of a frigid morning had arrived. He opened his eyes and glanced around. He was alone.

He stood and stretched, glancing down toward the sea. The water was still, quiet, and empty. He could make out but twenty or thirty feet of it before the grey-green of the channel disappeared in a wall of white mist. The only sounds reaching his ears were the gentle splashing of the tide against the rocky shoreline mingled with the cry of gulls soaring about in search of breakfast.

Glancing around further, he saw his friend scrambling back down the bluff. Rutherford rose and began easing his way toward where they had been the night before.

“What are you doing?” he said, hurrying after him.

“Finding out what they unloaded,” replied Powell. “There's a cave under that ledge. It's got to be the place.”

“What if someone's there?”

“I don't hear anything,” replied Powell, though at the words one of his hands went unconsciously to the knife at his belt and unfastened its buckle. “Run back up and get the lantern.”

Four minutes later, with Powell in the lead holding the light, the two ducked their heads and ventured tentatively into the blackness of one of hundreds of such caves along the southern coast of England. This particular one—not easily visible from above or from the sea, and with a large dry inner chamber—was singularly well suited for the purpose.

“Look at this!” exclaimed Powell.

Rutherford followed around a protruding wall of stone and now beheld what had prompted the outcry. The dancing light from his
friend's hand illuminated a booty of what seemed a fabulous wealth. Already Powell had set down the light and begun to examine the contents of the cave.

“We'll be rich if we can get this out of here!”

“We can't just . . .
steal
it,” objected the younger of the two, remembering vividly the frightening images and voices of the previous night.

“Why not? They don't even know we exist.”

“Somebody is bound to find out. What if someone sees us carting it away?”

“Who?”

“I don't know—whoever they were delivering it to.”

“We'll be careful. I don't know about you, but I'm taking all I can!”

He had already located a heavy chest and began lugging it toward the mouth of the cave.

“What I can't get on my horse's back,” he said, “I'll hide up there somewhere. There are plenty of places where it will never be seen.”

His friend knew from the gleam in his eye that there was no dissuading him. Almost as if resigning himself to the inevitable, Rutherford glanced about so as not to leave empty-handed himself. In the time it took Powell to make three or four eager trips back and forth to the bluff, he had finally located a somewhat modest-sized metal chest whose weight of some fifty pounds he thought he could manage.

“I've got what I'm taking,” he said.

“Is that all!” laughed Powell. “Look around, Broughton—we can set ourselves up for the rest of our lives!”

“This is all I want. If we take too much—”

“Don't be a coward,” interrupted Powell, his hands already full again.

“I'm getting out of here,” said Rutherford. “I'm nervous being here so long. I'm going back to the horses and starting for home . . . with this chest and nothing else.”

He headed for the mouth of the cave.

“Suit yourself,” laughed Powell. “But wait for me. I'll be along in a minute. I still say you're loony for not taking all you can.”

As he bent down to deposit his latest haul with the rest, Powell's knife, still loose, fell to the ground, along with several other small items he was carrying. But without noticing, he was already off for
more. His friend saw them, stooped to pick up the knife, compass, and spyglass—he could take no chances of anything being found; he would give them back to Rufus later—and deposited them in his coat, where he quickly forgot them for the rest of the day.

Twenty minutes later, to young Rutherford's great relief, the two were riding on their heavily laden mounts back the way they had come the previous afternoon. Fortunately, they saw not another soul on their way, and managed to get their goods safely hidden at their respective homes without detection.

————

When the news came to Heathersleigh Hall three weeks later, it was with difficulty that sixteen-year-old Broughton Rutherford disguised his disbelief and horror.

“I am afraid I have some dreadful news, son,” his father said as he dismounted his horse outside the Hall. “I've just learned that your friend Rufus Powell is dead.”

“What!” exclaimed Broughton, turning pale.

“His body was found south of here, on the moor near the coast.”

“But . . . how did he die?”

“No one knows. Murdered apparently, and brutally from the reports. There were numerous knife wounds.”

Broughton staggered back half a step.

“No one has any idea what could be the motive,” William Rutherford went on as he led his mount toward the stables. “When is the last time you and he rode together?”

“Uh . . . I don't know . . . a week or two ago,” answered Broughton vaguely.

“Well, it's a mystery . . . everyone's talking about it.”

That night, alone in his room and afraid for his life, young Broughton Rutherford crept to his closet and withdrew the chest he had taken from the pirates' cave.

He had to get rid of this. What if they found him too!

Luckily he had removed nothing but two or three small ships' logs, written in English, that were probably stolen anyway and of no interest to anyone. He might keep them out and look through them to see what he could learn. But the rest of it, he would stash good and out of sight, for fear someone might accidentally run across it.

Rufus had obviously been careless. He must have talked and been overheard by the wrong people, or else tried to go back to the cave for more.

The Turks or their accomplices surely knew he had not acted alone. They were probably scouring the countryside even now, watching Rufus's friends. He would have to guard his every move.

The greedy fool
, he thought to himself. Everything would have been fine if Rufus had just been satisfied. Now Broughton would be looking over his shoulder the rest of his life. He could never divulge that he possessed anything unusual of value. Pirates, they said, had long memories.

Not only did he have to hide it, he could never make use of it, never look at it, and never let on that he knew a thing about it. He couldn't let slip so much as a look or a glance to indicate other than that he was just as mystified at Rufus's death as everyone else. He could not even tell his father or his twelve-year-old brother, Robert.

No one must ever know, or eventually those same knives would split his skin too.