Over Sea, Under Stone

  Barney, his mind working furiously, went on coughing for rather longer than he needed to. When he looked up he took refuge instinctively in innocence. “I’m sorry, I caught my breath,” he said. “Did you say something?”

  “I think you heard perfectly well what I said,” Mr. Hastings said. He stood up again, towering very tall over Barney in the low chair, and walked over to the window with a glass of lager in his hand. The light fell on his face for the first time, and watching, Barney felt a slight chill of uneasiness at the flat permanent scowl of the brows and the grim lines running down to the mouth. It was a strong, far-away face, something like his great-uncle’s, but with a frightening coldness behind it that was not like Great-Uncle Merry at all. Barney found himself wishing very much that there was somebody to tell Great-Uncle Merry where he had gone.

  Mr. Hastings held up his glass to the window. The sunlight shone through it clear and golden. “An ordinary glass of beer,” he said, abstractedly, “until you hold it against the light. And then it becomes quite transparent, you can see right through it. . . .” He swung round on Barney so that he was silhouetted dark and menacing against the window again. “. . . As transparent as every single thing that you children have been doing, these past days. Do you think we have not seen through it all? Do you think we have not been watching?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Barney said.

  “You may be a stupid little boy,” Mr. Hastings said, “but not, I think, as stupid as all that. . . come along. We know that you have found a map, and that with the help of your esteemed great-uncle, Professor Lyon”—his mouth twisted on the words as if he were tasting something unpleasant—“you have been attempting to trace the place to which it leads. We know that you have come very near the end of that track. And since, my dear Barnabas, we cannot afford to risk your reaching the end of it, we have decided at last to draw in the net and put a stop to your little quest. That is what you are doing here.”

  Barney shivered at the menace in the cold deep voice. His mouth felt very dry. He reached forward and picked up the glass of milk again, and took a long drink. “I’m sorry,” he said, blinking wide-eyed at Mr. Hastings over the rim of the glass and licking a moustache of milk away from his upper lip. “I don’t know what you mean. Could I have another sandwich, please?”

  Behind him, he heard Mr. Withers’ sharp shocked intake of breath, and for a second a very small voice deep inside his brain crowed with triumph. But he watched the tall figure by the window apprehensively. It seemed to grow for a moment and loom still more menacingly over him. And then it moved abruptly, back into the dim shadow of the rest of the room.

  “Give him another sandwich,” Mr. Hastings said. “And then you can go, Withers. You know what you have to do. We haven’t much time. Come back when I ring.”

  Mr. Withers, his dark-stained face scarcely visible in the gloom, pushed the plate of sandwiches across to Barney’s elbow. He said obsequiously, “Yes, sir,” and ducking his head in a bow he went out of the room.

  Barney took another sandwich, feeling fatalistically that whatever was likely to happen, he might as well eat. “Why do they all call you ’sir’?” he said curiously.

  The tall man came and sat down at the desk again, playing with a pencil between his fingers. “Who is there that you would call ’sir’?”

  “Well, nobody really. Only the masters at school.”

  “Perhaps I am one of their masters,” Mr. Hastings said.

  “But they aren’t at school.”

  “I think you would not really understand, Barnabas. In fact there are a great many things that you do not understand. I wonder what stories that great-uncle of yours has put into your head. He has told you that we are bad and wicked, no doubt, and that he is a good man?”

  Barney blinked at him, and took another bite of his sandwich.

  Mr. Hastings smiled grimly. “Ah, but of course you do not know what I am talking about. You haven’t the slightest idea.” The heavy irony in the deep voice made Barney wrinkle his nose. “Well, let us forget that, just for a moment, and pretend, just pretend, that you do know what I mean. You have been led to believe, I think, that my friends and I are everything that is evil. That we want to follow up the clues in the map because we can do bad things with what we find. You have nothing to go on but your great-uncle’s word, and perhaps one or two strange things that Polly or Norman Withers may seem to have done.”

  The voice dropped until it was silky and very gentle. “But just think, Barnabas, of the strange things your great-uncle does.

  Coming out of nowhere and vanishing again . . . he has vanished again today, has he not? Well no, of course, you can’t answer me, because we are only pretending that you know what I am talking about. But this is not the first time he has unexpectedly disappeared, I think, and it will not be the last.”

  He stared at Barney, dark eyes penetrating and level from beneath the overhanging brow. Barney ate his sandwich a little more slowly, unable to take his own gaze away. “As for our being evil. . . well, now, Barnabas, do I strike you as being a bad man? Have I done you any harm? There you sit, eating and drinking quite happily, certainly not looking alarmed. Are you frightened of me?”

  “You had me kidnapped,” Barney said flatly.

  “Oh come now, that was just a little joke of Polly’s. I wanted to talk to you, that’s all.”

  Mr. Hastings sat back in his chair and spread his arms wide, with the tips of his fingers just touching the edge of the desk. “Now look, my boy. I will make a bargain with you. I will tell you what is actually behind everything that has been going on these last days, and you will stop playing this game of not having seen the map.”

  He did not wait for Barney to say anything. “We are indeed hunting the same thing that your great-uncle is hunting, my friends and I. But whatever story he has spun you about us is, quite frankly, a lot of moonshine. Your great-uncle is a scholar, and an outstanding one. Nobody would dispute that, and I probably know it better than you. The trouble is that he himself knows it, and thinks about it much too much.”

  “What d’you mean?” said Barney indignantly.

  “When a man is famous for being a very great scholar he wants very much to go on being famous. You found this old manuscript, you and your brother and sister, and when you told your great-uncle about it he realised, as you did not, how important it was. When he saw it he was even more certain. Now I, Barnabas, am the curator, that means the director, of one of the most important museums in the world. I have been hunting the manuscript that you found, and especially what it leads to, for a very long time. They are both very important to the people who study such things, and could make a lot of difference to the total of knowledge there is in the world. And your great-uncle knew that I was hunting them.

  “But when you found the manuscript he saw that he had a chance of achieving the quest himself. The more he thought about this, the more attractive an idea it seemed. He has always been famous as a man who knows a great deal about the part of history these things are connected with. If he were to find them, he would know more than anyone else in the world. People would say, what an amazing man Professor Lyon is, to know so much, there’s no one like him anywhere. . . .”

  “To know how much?” Barney said.

  “You would not understand the details,” Mr. Hastings said shortly. Then his voice dropped again to the same deep persuasive note. “Don’t you see, Barnabas? Your great-uncle is concerned only with his own fame. Do you think for one moment that when you have ended the hunt, any of the credit will go to you children? It will all go to him. . . . Whereas I and my museum, and the people I employ, believe that all knowledge should be shared, and that no one man has the right to it alone. And if you were to help us, we should take care that you had whatever credit was due to you. The whole world should know what you had done.”

  In spite of himself Barney had forgotten his sandwich and milk. He sat listening, troubled; trying to understand the
truth for himself. Yes, Great-Uncle Merry was strange, often, not like other men; but all the same. . . .

  He said, slow and perplexed, “Well, I don’t know—all this just doesn’t sound like Great-Uncle Merry. Surely he couldn’t do anything like that?”

  “But I assure you—” Mr. Hastings jumped to his feet and began walking to and fro between the desk and the door. He seemed unable to keep still any longer. “Many people one knows well, often most excellent people, can prove capable of the most curious acts. I do realise that you may be surprised, and shocked. But this is the truth, Barnabas, and it is very much more simple than you have been led to believe.”

  Barney said: “So we ought to give the map to you, and let you find the—” Just in time he caught back the word “grail.” Through the whole conversation there had been no mention of what the map led to. Perhaps they knew less than they said they did. Perhaps that was one of the things they wanted to trap him into telling them.

  Mr. Hastings paused for a second. “Yes?” he said.

  “Well, and let you find whatever it leads to.”

  Barney picked up the glass of milk again and drank reflectively.

  “Because then you would put whatever it is in your museum and everyone would be able to know about it.”

  Mr. Hastings nodded gravely. “There you have it, Barnabas. All knowledge is sacred, but it should not be secret. I think you understand. This is something you should do—that we should do—in the name of scholarship.”

  Barney looked down into his milk, swishing it gently round the glass. “But isn’t that what Great-Uncle Merry’s doing?”

  “No, no!” Mr. Hastings swung impatiently on his heel, striding impatient and very tall up and down the room. “Whatever he does he is doing in the name of Professor Lyon, and that is all. What else would he do anything for?”

  Barney never knew afterwards what put the words into his head; he spoke before he thought, almost as if someone else were speaking through him. He heard himself saying clearly, “In the name of King Arthur, and of the old world before the dark came.”

  The tall dark figure stopped abruptly, completely still, with its back still turned. For a moment there was absolute silence in the room. It was as if Barney had pressed a switch that would any moment bring an avalanche thundering down. He sat motionless and almost breathless in his chair. Then very slowly the figure turned. Barney gulped, and felt a prickling at the roots of his hair. Mr. Hastings was at the darker end of the room, near the door, and his face was hidden in shadow. But he seemed to loom taller and more threatening than he had ever done before, and when he spoke there was a different throb in the deep voice that paralysed Barney with fright.

  “You will find, Barnabas Drew,” it said softly, “that the dark will always come, and always win.”

  Barney said nothing. He felt as if he had forgotten how to speak, and his voice had died for ever with his last words.

  Mr. Hastings did not take his eyes off him. He reached out beside him and tugged twice at a cord hanging down from the ceiling beside the door. Within seconds the door swung open and Mr. Withers slipped noiselessly inside. He had washed the dark brown stain from his arms and face.

  “Is everything ready?” said the deep voice.

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Withers hissed obsequiously. “The car is at the side door. The girl has changed. She will drive again.”

  “You will drive with her. I shall follow in the closed car with the boy. Bill has it ready?”

  “The engine is running already. . . .”

  “Where are you taking me?” Barney’s voice rose shrill in fright, and he jumped down from his chair. But he could not run out of the room, past the tall figure that still held his gaze.

  “You are coming with us to the sea,” said the voice behind the dark intent eyes. “You will cause no trouble, and you will do whatever I say. And when we are on the sea, Barnabas, you are going to tell us about your map, and show us where it leads.”

  • Chapter Thirteen •

  The Grey House was as calm and empty as it had been when they left. “Barney!” Simon shouted up the stairs. “Barney?” His voice dwindled away uncertainly.

  “He can’t be inside,” Jane said. “The key was still in its hiding-place. Oh Simon, what can have happened to him?” She turned back anxiously to the open front door, and stared down the hill.

  Simon came back down the dark, shadowy hall to join her in the pool of sunlight. “He must have missed us in the harbour.”

  “But surely he’d have come back here after that? There isn’t a soul about down there now, they’ve all gone after the band. That awful Bill passed us—you don’t think—”

  “No,” Simon said hastily. “Anyway Barney’s got Rufus with him. He can’t get into much trouble. You wait, he’ll be back soon. I expect he’s found Gumerry and they’re looking for us.”

  He was turning back into the house when Jane suddenly shouted joyfully: “Look! You’re right!”

  Rufus was loping up the hill towards them, a swift streak of red on the grey road. But they could see no-one behind him. Jane called, and he raised his muzzle and trotted more quickly, up the steps, between their legs and into the house. Then he stood facing them, his long ribbon of a tongue dangling over his jaws. But his tail was down, and there was none of the bouncing, barking delight with which he usually came home.

  “No sign of Barney.” Jane came slowly in from the doorstep. She looked down at Rufus. “What is it, then? What’s happened?”

  The dog took no notice of her. He stood there apathetically, his eyes blank. Even when they had given him a drink of water and taken him into the room overlooking the harbour, he still gave no sign that he knew he was home. It was as if he were thinking of something quite different.

  “I expect it’s the heat,” Simon said. He sounded unconvinced. “Come on, there’s nothing we can do except wait. The yacht’s still down in the harbour, anyway.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Jane said miserably.

  “Well, it does mean—” But Simon had no chance to explain. Jane had clutched his arm nervously. He saw that she was staring at Rufus.

  They could never explain it afterwards. It was as if Rufus had been lying there listening for something, and had at last caught the thing he was waiting for: though they knew that they had heard no sound at all. He raised his head, his eyes so wide open that the whites were showing, and stood up slowly in a way more like an old man than a dog. His ears were pricked and his muzzle raised high, pointing straight at something they could not see. He began to walk, very slowly and deliberately, towards the door.

  Mesmerised, Simon and Jane followed. Rufus went out into the hall until he reached the front door, and stood waiting. He did not turn his head. He simply stood there rigid, looking ahead at the door, as if quite certain that they knew what he wanted them to do.

  Simon reached forward, glancing nervously down at the long, straight red back, and opened the door; and they stood on the step watching in complete bewilderment as Rufus stalked with the same ageless confidence straight ahead across the road. When he reached the other side he leapt up with a quick light flurry to stand erect on the wall which kept the road from the sheer sixty-foot drop down to the harbour side. He seemed to be looking out at the sea.

  “He’s not going to jump?” Jane jerked in alarm, but found that she was whispering.

  And then they heard the noise that they never afterwards forgot.

  Barney knew, dimly, that he had been taken out of the big silent house and driven away in a car; and that now they were walking in a group with the noise of the sea somewhere near. But he was not certain how many of them there were, or where they were taking him. Since the moment in the shadowy room when those blazing dark eyes had glared into his face, he had been conscious of nothing except that he was to do what he was told. He no longer had any thoughts of his own; it was a strange, relaxed feeling, as if he were comfortably half asleep. There could be no argument
now. No fighting. He knew only that the tall dark figure walking at his side, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, was his master.

  Master . . . who else had used the word that day?

  “Come, Barnabas,” said the hypnotic deep voice above him. “We must hurry. The tide is going out, we must reach the yacht.”

  Reach the yacht, said Barney dreamily to himself, we’re going on the sea . . . that was the sea he could smell, the water lapping beside them at the edge of Trewissick harbour.

  Far away, as if it came from a great height, he heard Polly Withers’ voice say urgently: “Anyone could see us from the road up by the house. They’ll see us, I know they will—”

  “Polly,” said the deep slow voice, “I am the one who sees. If our old Cornish friend has done her work well, there will be no one there. And if the other two children have been let slip . . . well, are they a match for us?”

  Somewhere Mr. Withers laughed, soft and sinister.

  Barney walked on, like a machine. The air was warm and thick; he could feel the sun fierce on his face. He had heard them talking ever since they left the house, but nothing they said seemed to have meaning for him any more. He was not frightened; he had forgotten Simon and Jane. He was somehow floating outside himself, watching with mild interest while his body walked along, but feeling nothing at all.

  And then, like the sudden snapping of a bow, the noise came.

  Into the air over their heads, a dog howled: a long weird note so unexpected and anguished that for a moment they all stopped dead. It echoed slow through the harbour, a freezing inhuman wail that had in it all the warning and terror that ever was in the world. Even Mr. Hastings stood listening, paralysed.

  And the Barney who was outside Barney, floating half detached in the air, felt the noise wake him up with a savage jolt. He looked up, and saw Rufus standing above him, outlined red against the sky, with the sound still throbbing from his throat. And suddenly he knew where he was, and that he must get away.