'What about Mr Manack?'
'I've locked him in upstairs. Come on.'
I picked up a torch that was lying on a table, tested it and then followed her out into the passage. She got a small bundle of things wrapped in oilskins from the kitchen and joined me.
We left the house by the front door and went straight down through the shadowy outlines of the ruined mine workings. As we started down the slope I turned and looked back. Cripples' Ease lay like a dark shadow against the night sky. Only one light burned there. That was in the little room at the top. The bars were clearly visible, and behind them, inside the room, the old man's shadow moved back and forth across the ceiling as he paced the floor.
I went on then down the slope, my face turned to the clean wind that came up from the sea. The ruined buildings seemed remote and primitive. They stood there like decaying tombstones, marking the passage of generations of miners. They were the only indications of the honeycomb of workings running deep down below the cliffs and out under the sea. I shivered and tried to forget about the events of the last few hours. It was like a nightmare, something that only existed in the imagination. But the old engine house, built of great granite slabs, which came to meet us out of the darkness reminded me that it was all real enough, that Manack and Friar and Slim and Dave were not the first men to die like rats beneath the ground we walked on. I was glad to be going. I'm a Cornishman and a miner, but, by God, I tell you I was glad to be leaving the tin coast.
Kitty found a place where we could climb down not far from the adit mouth of Wheal Garth. We found a patch of grass halfway down and sat there, gazing out into the dark vista of the sea. Below us the waves rolled ceaselessly against the cliffs, fringing the base with a line of surf. Beyond was a dark void in which the advancing lines of the Atlantic swell were sensed rather than seen.
We had not long to wait. Just after four a dark shape drew in towards the cliffs. Kitty seized my arm and pointed. It was the Arisaig all right. I could dimly see the outline of her schooner rig. I pulled my torch out and flashed in morse: Send boat ' — Manack. There was no answering signal. I repeated the message. Still no answering signal, but a moment later a small shape detached itself from the dark bulk of the schooner and came bobbing across the waves towards the cliffs. We scrambled down to a ledge of rock that ran out into the sea. I flashed my torch to direct them. Then we stripped to our underclothes, tied our things up in the oilskins and swam out to meet the boat.
Mulligan was in the stern sheets. 'What the devil's this girl doing here?' he asked as they pulled us aboard. 'Where's Tanner?'
'Dead,' I said. 'So's Manack.'
'You're lying,' he snarled.