Page 77 of The Cornish Mermaid

Ysella sat down hard on her bottom on the path. “Yes, fire it now, Sam! Before it’s too late.” Her voice rose in urgency. “Warn Kit’s men.”

Morvoren joined her, feeling far more secure once she was firmly anchored to the ground. Ysella’s hand slid into hers, small and cold.

Sam drew out one of the two pistols he was carrying and pointed it toward the beach. With shaking fingers he cocked it and pulled the trigger. It went off with a report like a—well, like a gun firing. He staggered back a step and pulled the other one out of his belt.

Down on the beach, the tiny figures of the men who’d been heading toward the surf faltered, slowing their pace and looking around themselves in confusion as though perhaps wondering if they’d heard right. It must have been hard to hear the gunshot above the sound of the waves sucking at the sand.

“Fire the other one,” Morvoren hissed.

Sam cocked the second pistol and fired again.

For a moment, the men on the beach stood immobile, before all hell broke loose. More shots rang out, the flare of them crackling in the darkness from the hillside not far below and on the beach near the cliffs. Were there revenue men hiding on the cliff path?

“Quick,” Sam said. “We have to move before anyone comes up here to see who fired the warning shots. They’re not far ahead.” He turned to Jem. “Kit and Jago will be heading back to the farmhouse. Which way do we go?”

“If the revenue men are that close,” Morvoren said, “then they might think one of their own got trigger happy.”

“Not twice,” Sam hissed. “Quickly. We have to move.” He yanked Morvoren and Ysella to their feet.

On the beach, the smugglers had turned tail and were bolting back toward the dunes.

More gunshots rang out, the flare of them lighting the night. And shouts filled the air, some frighteningly close.

Sam turned to Jem, shoving the two empty pistols back into his belt. “Which way to the farmhouse?”

“Oh my goodness,” Ysella gasped. “Look what we’ve done.”

More gunshots, and more shouting. Were the smugglers armed, or was all this firing the revenue men and soldiers? The only thing in Morvoren’s mind was the fear that she might not have been in time to save Kit from death on the beach.

Jem seemed transfixed by what was going on. Sam had to grab him by the shoulders and give him a shake. Maybe the reality wasn’t so exciting as he’d expected. He wasn’t much more than a child, after all.

“Jem. Pull yourself together,” Sam hissed. “Point us in the right direction and then it’s time for you to go back to Carlyon Court to your mother. You must take Ysella with you to safety. If the worst comes to the worst, she can’t be found here at Nanpean. But I have to be there.”

“But I want to come with you,” Ysella protested, grabbing Sam’s arm. “He’s my brother.”

“All the more reason for you not to be there,” Morvoren said. “How would it look if the revenue men come to the house and find you there, dressed as a boy? How guilty does that make Kit look? Sam and I will go.”

Sam looked from Morvoren’s face to Ysella’s and back again. “I think you should go back too,” he ventured.

Morvoren shook her head. “It’s because of me you’re here, so I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not. Girls from my time don’t take orders from men.”

He shut up.

Jem, with great reluctance, showed them a narrow, sheep trod path down the hill, mercifully heading inland away from the cliffs but just as steep as the one they’d been negotiating. “Down there. Sh’d bring yer to the back o’ Nanpean farmhouse, all righty.” He cast his eyes once more over Morvoren. “You’s a brave un for a girl, I guess. Good luck to yer.”

Ysella threw herself into Morvoren’s arms. “Be careful, Morvoren, and bring Kit back with you, please. Alive.”

Morvoren hugged her back. “Let me go, or they’ll be back at the farmhouse before we are.”

Ysella released her hold, and with only a quick look back over her shoulder, Morvoren plunged after Sam down the rocky path toward where two tall trees marked the farmhouse.

*

Kit

The sound of the first pistol firing ricocheted around the amphitheater of the beach, echoing between the towering cliffs until it sounded like a myriad of shots had been fired.

Kit and Jago ground to a halt on the wet sand and their men slowed and stopped. Before them, the beach sloped down steeply toward the waves where three yawls were at this very moment struggling in the surf. A sharp wind was beating onshore and the waves were bigger than normal, and out to sea the light of the mother ship bobbed on the swell and went out. They, too, must have heard the shot.