I was dog tired after the events and the work of the day and the mattress, lumpy as it was, was luxury after the hard bottom boards of the cramped dinghy. And yet I fought off sleep. For all I knew to the contrary, Bible Bill had more than one murder to his discredit — and a sleeping man is so very vulnerable. There had been stains on two of the mattresses that I had assumed were rust; now I was not so sure.
So I lay there, struggling to keep awake.
I thought of shifting my mattress outside and sleeping in the open — but even in the Tropics it can be quite chilly once the sun has gone down. I thought of forcing my company on Sally — I could argue that it was necessary that I sleep in the hut with her for her protection. It was a valid enough point and I knew that she would see the force of it — but I was reluctant to do anything about it just yet. As things were, she was still surrounded by a certain aura of untouchability. She had maintained it even in the forced intimacy of the boat voyage. Once Curley Green knew that she had slept with a man — and it would never occur to him that “sleep” would mean just that and nothing more — she would be fair game.
Bible Bill was muttering to himself, softly and indistinctly. I tried to hear what he was saying. I did catch something about “the sword of the Lord, and of Gideon …” but that was all.
And then he started to snore.
The noise should have helped to keep me awake, but it had the reverse effect. It was, in fact, the cessation of it that awoke me with a start, with a feeling of panic. Automatically my hands went up to ward off the bony claws that I was sure would be at my throat. Wildly I stared around the squalid interior of the hut, dimly lit by the brilliance of the full moon outside. I saw at once that the other mattress was empty.
So what? Old men are notorious for weakness of bladder.
And yet I was curious.
Quietly I slid off my mattress, padded to the doorway. I saw a ghostly, white robed form flitting over the stony ground, toward the cliff edge. This was odd. The obvious place in which to answer the call of nature would have been among the bushes, inland.
I decided to follow him.
He was making for the path down to the beach. I waited until he was actually on it, until he had commenced his descent and was out of sight, before I left the hut. I ran silently after him. It almost wasn’t in silence — I stubbed a toe painfully against a rock and had to bite my lip to smother my curses.
When I got to the cliff edge the old man was halfway down the path, clearly visible in the moonlight. I watched him as he completed his way down, as he walked to the edge of the sea. I saw him raise his arms and wave.
Out there, on the moonlit water, I could see the dark shapes of the patrolling porpoises, saw one of them turn to look towards the beach, then turn again before it vanished beneath the surface. The old man still stood there, still waving his long, skinny arms.
And then the porpoise was back. But was it the same one? I couldn’t be sure, but even at this range it seemed … different. It was larger. It swam steadily into the shallows and then paused there, a few feet offshore. It was the leader, I decided, the one called Noah.
The night was calm but I doubted if I should be able to overhear even a shouted conversation at this distance, especially when one of those involved was almost unintelligible, even in favourable circumstances. But to follow the old man down to the beach would be to court certain discovery.
A thin, piercing sound, peculiarly sweet, drifted up from the water’s edge. I listened in puzzlement. It wasn’t a tune. It was all one note, with a staccato, broken rhythm, a familiar rhythm — familiar, but not familiar enough. Had I seen that same rhythm flashed on a lamp I should have been able to read it — but those who can read Morse visually can rarely read it aurally, and I was no exception to the general rule.
I tried, of course.
I thought that I could detect a note of pleading in Bible Bill’s transmission, a note of almost scornful rejection in the sea beast’s reply. The old man persisted, trilling away like a canary with hiccups. I did, at last get the gist of the porpoise’s reply. Even I could read that one word, those two groups. It was repeated often enough.
“Dash dot, dash dash dash.”
“NO.”
So the prophet was without honour in his own country.
But it was no longer his own country — the theologian had been deposed by the mechanic. And outside the boundaries patrolled the sea people, more concerned with results than beliefs.
Bible Bill gave up at last. His arms dropped limply to his side.
When I saw him begin his slow climb back up the cliff face I went back to the hut, was back on my mattress when he limped in dejectedly through the doorway. Somehow I was no longer afraid of him. There was no spirit left in him. When he had time to brood upon his grievances he might be dangerous again, but the time was not yet.
And by then, I hoped, I should have been able to get in some sound signalling practice myself. It might be useful to be able to communicate with our jailers in a code unknown to Curley Green.
And, so thinking, I went to sleep.