Free The Black Hand by Will Thomas

would not like his ship reduced to kindling.”
    “I thought it was your ship, sir,” I said, tentatively taking the wheel.
    “I’m still owner, and may do as I like when I’m here, but he’s captain the rest of the time. He runs the fishing fleet here, you see. I can’t allow the Osprey to lie idle. It has to be worked.”
    “So he’s the fellow you send checks to every month.”
    “Aye. There’s a lot of upkeep on a ship like this. It has to be laid up for the winter, and have the barnacles scraped off the hull. It has to be repainted and polished. Oh, there’s a thousand things done to keep a ship afloat year after year.”
    “It must have taken you years of hard work to buy such a unique vessel, sir.”
    “Oh, no, lad,” he said. “Won her in a game of chance in Manila one evening. Fan-tan, I believe it was. Extraordinary bit of luck.”
    “I thought you hated gambling and all games of chance.”
    “Oh, I do. Some people will bet on anything and ruin their families over it. But you know, I haven’t always felt that way. Look, there’s Seaford ahead. Steady as she goes. I’d better go warn Beauchamp.”
    Barker called out to Beauchamp, and the ship slowlycame to a standstill, rocking as the waves rolled under it. The Guv moved to the bow and released the anchor with a splash, while Beauchamp came up the stairs again and leaned against a railing, whittling a piece of wood with his jackknife. Barker put his foot up the starboard side of the boat and looked out across the water of the Channel.
    “Storm’s coming in,” he remarked. “The sky was red this morning before we left London.”
    Beauchamp nodded. I could picture the four of them—Barker, Ho, Dummolard, and Beauchamp—in this boat, not saying much for hours at a time, answering any question put to them with grunts. As much as I was enjoying the trip, if they expected me to endure such conditions for long, they would require a press-gang.
    A heavy metal object was suddenly dropped into my lap. It was shaped like a truncheon.
    “That, Mr. Llewelyn, is a belaying pin. They go in the holes along the side here, and the lines are tied to them.”
    “This could cave in a fellow’s skull,” I noted, hefting it.
    “Not a sailor’s. They are notoriously thick skulled.”
    Behind me, I heard Beauchamp chuckle.
    “I shall have to practice, then,” I said. “Thanks for bringing me along. I know I’m just a landsman.”
    “Shovels well enough,” Peter Beauchamp remarked. He didn’t look up, concentrating on his carving, which looked like it would eventually become a toy boat. I thought of his brood of children.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Don’t let it go to your head.”
    * * *
    Dinner that evening at Mrs. Ashleigh’s estate was almost as fine as one of Etienne’s meals, but I was paying more attention to the window behind me. Barker’s prediction of a storm was on the mark. In fact, it became a full gale, the kind that buffets the south coast once or twice a year, although it took hours to develop. Soon the rain began, and was quickly followed by thunder.
    The wind blew leaves and branches and lashed rain up along the broad South Downs, after gaining force over the tossing waves of the Channel. Inside the old house, most of the shutters had been fastened closed, but the panes shook. Though it was approaching midnight none of us were asleep amid the racket. A steady tattoo of raindrops beat on the glass, and the old structure groaned against the heavy wind. Sometimes, during a lull between the howling wind gusts we heard the plaintive bleat of a sheep or the neighing of a horse in a stable near the house.
    Cyrus Barker was restless, which is never a good sign. We were both by an unshuttered window when we saw Beauchamp with a shotgun broken over his arm. He signaled to us, pointing two fingers at his eyes, and away toward the front of the estate. Then he trotted off.
    “They’re coming,” Barker growled.
    “How did they find us?” I