Lady Winterbourne's Entanglement by Miriam Rochester

Author:Miriam Rochester
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2015-10-21T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The next evening after darkness fell, Lady Penelope found herself behind Marsden Rock. The rock was a huge, natural, monolith of Magnesium Limestone, which lay approximately one hundred feet from the huge cliff face. It was a hundred feet high and was home to a colony of seabirds, including kittiwakes, fulmars and cormorants.

The cliffs behind the rock contained a large grotto, which had been blasted out and made larger by a colourful character who had earned the name of Jack the Blaster. He had made his home there with his family, but he had died a few years earlier and the caves were now sadly neglected. When the tide was in, Marsden rock was completely surrounded by water and cut off from the Grotto cave. Fortunately, this evening, the tide was out, and Andy and Penelope were able to walk across the damp sand to reach the rock. Penelope could see that it was a good lookout, for once behind the huge structure; it would not be easy for a signal to be seen from the land.

‘What do you do when the tide is in and you cannot reach this place,’ she asked Andy curiously.

‘We have a number of lookouts,’ he replied. There is the new stone mill at Whitburn or the bell tower of Whitburn Church. Jem, the gravedigger leaves the church doors open so that we can enter. We must sit here for a while and wait for the word that it is safe to make a signal.’

Andy and Penelope sat for twenty minutes until they heard the sound of horse hooves on the soft sand. Jem approached, dismounted and walked across to them. ‘It is all clear,’ he confirmed. ‘Captain Monaghan and Lieutenant Bartoft left for Sunderland twenty minutes ago. It is safe to light the signal. If the Sloop is out there, send the signal directing them to the Wherry. The others are waiting there.’

Andy sat down on a large rock and reached into his pocket for his tinderbox. Setting an oil lamp on the ground, he proceeded to light it. Penelope watched him as he raised the lamp above his head and began to sway it back and forth. To her amazement, a signal answered back through the darkness. The signal had been brief but unmistakable. Andy proceeded to send out a series of signals using a piece of thin driftwood to intermittently block the light. Three flashes followed by a twenty second wait, which he repeated five times. This was the arranged signal to guide them into the Wherry. If the Sloop could get close enough to the shore, the small boats, which they had arranged, would only need to make a short trip out to meet them.

Penelope was full of questions. ‘What if the riding officers noticed the signal from the sloop? Will that not give you away?’ she asked with a worried frown.

‘It is possible, Miss Penny,’ Andy replied, ‘but they cannot possibly know where the goods are going to land.

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