The Ship at the Bend

The hemp rope tightened on Edmund's wrists, still in a navy knot. The heavy boots pushed him down the steps; the knife-point never left his back. The boy only steadied him, then drew the oars, and the skiff left the stone without a sound.

The boat at the lamp-post was still there. Holmes undid the wet painter; Watson took the oars, which were still dripping. They slipped into the fog along the wall, half a lamp's ring behind, and dared come no nearer.

The fourth lamp shrank at their backs. The tide had begun to turn, and the current carried the narrower boat downstream. Watson heard the oars enter the water very lightly, as if afraid of waking something in the bend.

The bend opened, and a ship's shadow split the dark. No riding light showed; only a spark mid-deck, cupped in a palm. A thin, tall figure raised a hand—not in greeting, but as a cue, the kind a prompter gives an actor for his entrance.

Holmes pressed his oar into the water, his voice almost shapeless. "I see him. The prompter is on the ship."

❦ To be continued.