Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [100]
All was dark; as my mouth filled with salt, I thought I saw the even darker shapes of giant chains strung through the depths. A wave lifted me into air; a shattered timber crashed against my brow, and I saw no more.
14
The Hopes of a Race
I dreamt my face was being washed with a soft, damp flannel; I opened my eyes and found Abel standing on my chest, licking my chin. He barked at this sign of my resurrection; I pushed him away and groggily sat up, my palms digging into sand as I did so. The smell of the ocean was strong in my nostrils, owing perhaps to the quantity of seaweed tangled about my limbs.
A jagged piece of flotsam nudged my foot, impelled by the lapping waves. Other debris, splintered fragments of the ill-fated Virtuous Persistence, were strewn about the small, rock-bordered cove.
"Dower," said a voice behind me. I turned around and saw the impassive countenance of the Brown Leather Man gazing down at me. His dark hand reached down and helped me to my feet. "Good it is to see you awake. I had seen no injuries upon your person, but of these matters one cannot be sure."
I shook my head, both to clear my thoughts and to disperse the water lodged inside my ear. "What place is this?" I asked, looking about at the high cliffs that lined the shore.
"You're safe on the island of Groughay." He gestured at the surrounding rocks. "You will forgive, I trust, for the necessary violence of the means employed to bring you here. But you are free from the Godly Army, at least."
"That was all your doing? But how?"
"Your father enabled me thus. The device he created, for the purpose of gathering seaweed, exists still in working order. In the sea, the chains and wooden booms are yet in place – I had only to activate the device to create such havoc as you saw, and to draw you and your companions to safety here."
"My companions? You mean, Scape and Miss McThane? Where are they?"
"No fear," said the Brown Leather Man. "They are but a small distance from here, on another point of the shore. But of you I must ask – where is that which I gave you? The wreckage of the ship I have searched, and not found it in that which was your cabin. You had hidden the object elsewhere, I trust?"
It was the brass cylinder, with his minute progeny inside, of which he spoke. With a heavy heart, I informed him of how Lieutenant Brattle had thrown it overboard. He staggered backwards on learning this, as though struck above the heart. His gaze turned from me towards the ocean, as though contemplating the enormity of searching its depths for the precious item.
The currents of fortune saved him from this impossible task. I heard Abel barking several yards away from us; a gleam of bright metal rolled in the seaweed at the water's edge; some movement inside had caught the dog's attention. "Look there." I grabbed the Brown Leather Man's arm and pointed.
He saw it, ran and gathered it up, cradling the brass cylinder as tenderly as a newborn infant. I could see the dark-eyed sprats swimming about inside.
"I must leave you," he said. "They have reached the age that into their proper bed they must be placed." He turned from me and waded into the sea.
"But what about us?" I shouted after him. "What's to become of us?"
The waves lapped up to his chest, and over the cylinder held there. "Do not worry. You shall see me again soon. All will be taken care of."
I stood gazing at the spot where he had disappeared. With Abel at my heels, I headed in the direction where he had indicated I might find my fellow castaways.
They were alive, and evidently unharmed. I spotted them from the top of the outcropping of rock that separated another small cove from that where I had been washed ashore. Scape was sorting out various bits of debris from the wreck – nothing of any value was arranged on the sand – while Miss McThane watched his labours from her seat on a rounded stone. Her shoulders and arms were bare to the sun, while her tattered