Free The Ebb Tide by James P. Blaylock Page A

innocent. Perhaps we’re as shrewd as we think ourselves to be, but it looks very much as if Frosticos has been leading us along like blind men.” I watched the unchanging view through the port, worried that they were taking an infernally long time, and slightly unhappy with myself for having laid out my suspicions about Finn Conrad like a trial lawyer while insisting that I didn’t want to malign him.
    “For the moment,” St. Ives said, “let’s remember that all their machinations have been in vain. We’ll keep a weather eye on Finn, just for safety’s sake, but we’ll not condemn him until we’re certain.”
    “Good enough,” I said, and abruptly we began to rise again, jerky and quick, and within moments we burst out into the dawn twilight, dripping watery sand, having been reeled in ignominiously, but alive. I saw straight off, however, that something was amiss.
    The wagon was tilted disastrously, headfirst into the sand. Fred had untied the team, their forelegs covered with ooze, and was leading them away. Finn stood by him, but I saw that Hasbro lay over the back of one of the horses, unconscious or dead. Fred glanced back at us with concern evident on his face, and when St. Ives opened the hatch Fred shouted, “Remain very still, lads. Your friend’s been shot. He’ll live to tell the tale. There’s nothing for you to do for him.” He pointed up the bay before turning away.
    We looked in that direction discerned movement atop a high dune not too far off the shore. It was impossible to say who it was for certain, but we had no doubt that it was our tall friend who had peppered away at us in the boatyard.
    Then we saw that we hadn’t, in fact, been drawn clear of the sands at all, but our legs and underbelly were still submerged. The wagon itself was half sunk, too, and Fred had evidently unhitched the team in order to save them from being drawn down with the wagon. The box was grappled to its line, and it seemed likely that the combined weight of the box and the diving chamber and we two human beings had been enough to haul the wagon down into the mire.
    “One at a time, now,” Fred shouted in a voice meant for the deck of a ship. “Out the door and across the wagon, lads. It’s the only way. And be quick about it! Don’t stand arguing.” He set out toward shore.
    “Out you go, Jack,” St. Ives said, putting his hand on my elbow.
    I shook it off. “You first. Think of Eddie and Cleo,” I said to him. “And take the box with you or this is all for nothing. I’ll follow.”
    Of course he started to protest, but I cut him off sharp.
    “It’s no good,” I told him. “My mind’s made up. So it’s either out the door or shut the hatch.”
    Fred shouted something more from afar, shouted as if he meant it, and St. Ives shook his head darkly and swung carefully out of the hatch, reaching for the line along the side of the crane, stepping across to get a foot on the bed of the wagon. At once there was more shouting from without, and then the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot. I was thinking quite clearly and reasonably and was filled with a certain calm, and doubly determined to wait until St. Ives was clear of the wagon and the box with him.
    He had his shoulder under it now, lifting it upward to take the weight off the grapple. When it was free, he carried it heavily to the rear of the wagon and set it down in order to drop to the ground. Beyond, nearly halfway to Humphrey Head now, the others swarmed along, Fred leading the horses with one hand, the other holding onto Finn’s arm. I saw the boy look back at us, and Fred letting go of him for a moment to gesture for us to hurry. And in that moment Finn bolted, back across the sands toward us. Fred slapped the horses and sent them careening forward, carrying Hasbro toward high ground, and he turned and ran back after the boy. There was another rifle shot, and I saw Fred drop to the ground, but then he was up again and running. 
    I saw