The Cuckoo Tree (17 page)

"I wonder you care to part with it—since it is the family treasure?" Colonel FitzPickwick said inquisitively.

"The
family?
The family that does not even know of my existence? Pah! I should like to c-crush it to dust!" the other man said with such violent anger in his voice that the Colonel took an instinctive step forward. "S-set your mind at rest, however—I shall n-not do so! After all, this little t-trifle is going to pay for our t-triumph—it will set your humble servant back in his rightful place as well as K-King George. But, C-Colonel, I detain you—you have other engagements, I am s-sure. Pray don't let me inc-inconvenience you."

The Colonel seemed reluctant to leave.

"What about the boy—you'll not harm him?"

"Pelmett and Twite shall take him back to jail—ready for export. I see you were right. He c-can tell us nothing
useful. G-good night, my dear sir."

He stood up and stepped to escort Colonel FitzPickwick from the place, carelessly slinging the black cord around his neck as he did so. But the cord, insecurely tied, came unknotted, and the pendant slipped off it and fell without a sound on to the dusty floor. They exchanged a few last words at the door, then the Colonel went out and mounted a horse, which could then be heard trotting away.

"Now," Tegleaze said briskly returning. "Give FitzPickwick a few minutes to get clear, then dispose of the b-boy."

"Back to the lock-up, eh?" Pelmett said with a meaning wink.

Tegleaze did not reply; Tobit felt a sudden oddness in the atmosphere.

"Who are you?" he blurted out.

"Found your t-tongue, eh?" Mr. Mystery gave Tobit a long, strange, chill stare. "Well, it won't do you much good now. And it won't do you much good to know who I am. But I'll tell you—I'm your cousin—your cousin Miles Tegleaze. Our great-great-great-grandfathers were brothers, back in Cromwell's day. Yours fought on the king's side and prospered; mine went overseas to the Americas and f-fell on hard times. So did his son and his son's son. But n-now it is
my
turn to crow."

He swung away as if the sight of Tobit fidgeted him, and studied some plans that lay on the table. "Right," he said presently without looking around, "t-take him out."

Pelmett and the man called Twite grabbed Tobit's arms
again and urged him toward the door. But he tripped over an iron bolt that fastened a trap entrance in the floor and, unable to keep his balance with his arms behind him, fell flat on his face.

Just before he hit the floor he saw something to his left in the thick, floury dust: a small, round, brightly colored object—the Tegleaze luck-piece. By pushing himself sideways, as if struggling to get up, Tobit was just able to gulp it into his mouth—along with a lot of dust—before the two men dragged him upright again.

Once outside the mill they did not, as he had expected, take him back toward the jail. Instead, Twite held him, while Pelmett moved a few feet away.

"Dark as the inside of a cow," Tobit heard him mutter. "Where is the plaguy thing—Ah—" There came a strange grinding creak as if heavy metal or stone had been slowly opened or dragged to one side. With an indescribable pang of terror Tobit remembered the disused well in the windmill yard.

"Too bad about this, young feller-me-lad," muttered the man called Twite. "But orders is orders—that Mystery knows enough about me to have me strung up by the heels from Temple Bar. I'll undo your hands though—you can swim if you've a mind to."

Tobit felt the noose gently slipped from his wrists—next minute he was pushed violently forward—trod on nothing—and fell, gasping with shock and fright. The luck-piece flew out of his mouth as he fell. Something struck his arm and he made an instinctive clutch at it, first
with one hand, then with the other. It was the well rope, which burnt and scraped his palms as he shot helplessly downward. Another loud grinding creak overhead told him that the well's lid had been shut above him; at the same moment his fall was checked; he came to rest on something cold and sharp that cut and bruised his knees and shins: the bucket. Tobit and the bucket together dropped a few more feet; then, apparently, the rope caught, or had come to the end of its length.

Dangling in the dark, Tobit reached out with one hand; he could feel the circular brick wall of the well all around him, nothing above or below. He found a Joobie nut in his pocket and dropped it, but could hear no splash; either the well was dry, or the water was too far down for the sound to be audible. Up above, he could see a tiny circle of night sky, about the size of a button, with a single star in it. This must be the round hole in the middle of the millstone.

"I am hanging on a bucket in a well," thought Tobit very slowly and carefully. "I don't know how deep it is, but it may be
very
deep. I daren't shout for help because the nearest person is probably that man who says he is my cousin, and he wants me to die, I suppose so he can be sure of getting Tegleaze Manor. I have lost the luck-piece, which is at the bottom of the well. The only other people who know where I am are Pelmett and that man who undid the rope. Everybody else will think I have escaped from the jail. Grandmother has cut me off. No one will care what has happened to me."

With a tremendous effort he managed to wriggle up so
that he was half kneeling on the bucket. It was difficult because the bucket swung about and tipped, and when he had changed his position the metal rim hurt his legs, but at least some of the weight was off his arms. He wondered if the rope would break.

After a while he tried to make up a story about how he was rescued from the well, but no possible story seemed to meet the case.

He began to feel painful cramps in his arms and legs, but there was no way that he could move to ease them; he could find no comfort, either for mind or body.

He had thought himself to be miserable in jail, but in comparison with his present situation the jail seemed quite a cozy, homelike place. He wondered if he could be dreaming—having a nightmare—but it was all so unlikely that he was sure it must be real. The dreams from Joobie nuts were nothing like as frightening as this.

Joobie nuts. He felt them rattling in his pocket like heavy little peas. He could chew a couple and give himself a different kind of dream—but then he would go to sleep and fall off the bucket and that would be the end of him.

Presently, for no better reason than to distract his mind from the hopelessness of his plight, he began puzzling over the talk between Tegleaze and Colonel FitzPickwick.

"Where's your sister?" Tegleaze had asked. And FitzPickwick had said, "He didn't know she existed."

What could they have meant? Surely they were not talking about him?

"I haven't got a sister," Tobit repeated obstinately.

After another very long pause he added,

"Have I?"

Dido, Cris, and the three Wineberry Men stood in dismay, at a loss, out by the jail, until Pip said in an urgent whisper,

"Butter my wig, boys, let's scarper! Us doesn't want to be picked up by the constables spannelling around outside the lock-up."

"He's right," said Yan. "You two liddle maids'd best get back to The Fighting Cocks, smartish. If there's kidnappers abroad 'tis time for honest folk to be under cover."

"But what'll us do about Tobit?" said Dido worriedly. "I don't trust that Mystery—
he'd
pinch the birdseed from a blind canary. What'd he want to kidnap Tobit from jail
for?
"

No one could answer this.

"I'll nip round to the Angel, where he was staying, and have a word with the landlord," said Yan. "He be my great-aunt Gertrude's godson. He'll tell me if old Mystery's stirred out lately and where he's been. You two lads, Tan and Pip, quick yourselves out o' town and get to work on tomorrow's load, I'll see you presently. And if I pick up any news at the Angel I'll leave word with Aunt Sary."

They separated, going in three different directions. Dido and Cris started down the alley, back toward The Fighting Cocks. But Cris went slower and slower, presently stopped altogether.

"What ails you, gal?" Dido said in an impatient whisper. "Bustle on, can't you?"

"I—I feel as if Aswell were trying to say something," Cris whispered back. "But I can't quite hear—can't make out what it is. Wait—wait just a minute!"

She stood still, then turned slowly back the way they had come, like a water diviner questing for the pull of the rod.

"Oh, rummage it," Dido muttered. "This is a fine time for Aswell to feel like a chat."

Very unwillingly she followed Cris, who was now proceeding at a steady pace back along the alleyway. At the top she went left, passing the jail again, and entered a grass-grown yard at the side of a windmill. Someone was inside the mill: there was a faint rim of light around the door. Dido looked inquiringly at Cris, who shook her head.

"Hush! I can almost hear it now!" she breathed. "Why are you so faint, Aswell?"

Their eyes were used to the dark; they could see the round stone in the middle of the yard, and the wellhead. Cris moved slowly toward this, listening all the time. Dido took two or three steps after her, glancing warily around.

"
Cris!
Yan said we oughta get under cover!" she whispered urgently.

"Hush!" Cris, heedless of Dido's warning, seemed to be listening through every pore of her skin. She murmured, "I can't make it out—Aswell seems to be in trouble—"

There followed a pause which seemed nerve-rackingly long to Dido, then Cris added with the beginnings of doubt in her voice,

"
Is
it Aswell?"

At that moment something struck Dido on her wrist. She rubbed the place and whispered, "
Do
come on, gal, we dassn't stay scambling about here so near the lock-up—"

"Could Aswell be down
there?
"

Like a bird dog, Cris was pointing to the well—not with her hand, but with her whole attention.

"In the
well?
Look, Cris, it just ain't sensible to stay here—"

Two more pellets struck Dido's hand; purely by chance she caught one of them and rolled it unthinkingly between her fingers. Something about the feel and shape of it attracted her notice; she sniffed it, peered at it, tested it with the tip of her tongue. It was a Joobie nut.

"HejM Where did that come from?"

She knelt down to look at the millstone covering the well; as she did so, a fourth nut hit her on the cheek. It had come, there was no doubt at all, through the round hole in the well lid.

"What the dickens is going on round here?" she whispered to Cris. "Surely to goodness Aswell ain't shooting Joobie nuts at us from down the well?"

Even while she said the words her mind had leapt ahead and found the explanation.

"Tobit!"

She squatted down by the stone and leaned so that her face was over the hole. A nut struck her cheek. "Hey, Tobit!" she called softly. "Are you down there, boy?"

She could feel the well's hollowness carry her voice downward.

"Yes!" An urgent whisper came echoing back. "I'm halfway down here, hanging on a bucket. Can you pull me up? Some men threw me down here. Is that Dido? Are you on your own?"

"Rabbit me,
now
what are we going to do?" Dido muttered. "We don't dare waste time hunting for Yan—how does this pesky well open up?"

She felt all over the millstone; tugged upward; it was immovable.

"They musta shifted the stone somehow to get him
in—
"

All this time Cris had been standing silent, apparently dumbstruck; now she murmured in bewilderment,

"It's
not
Aswell!"

"O' course it's not Aswell, you noddy!" whispered Dido, hauling unavailingly at the millstone. "It's your brother. It's Tobit. Give us a hand, do!"

"No, but Aswell
is
saying something now—listen! Aswell says—wait, I'm getting it—Aswell says sideways. Push the stone sideways."

"What, like this?" More than doubtful, Dido gave the stone a shove, and nearly tumbled headlong in herself as it swung around, evidently on a pivot, to reveal a black crescent-shaped hole. The loud grinding rumble it made terrified the girls; Cris ran on tiptoe around to the far side of the stone; she and Dido eased it farther around, inch by inch; even so it seemed to make a hideous row in the quiet night. It would not go all the way; feeling around, Dido discovered that the rope had somehow jammed underneath it, which was why, evidently, the bucket had stuck halfway down and broken Tobit's fall.

"Anyways, I reckon there's room for him to clamber through," she whispered to Cris. "We can't wind up the bucket, though—we'll just have to haul him up. Brace yourself, Cris! It's lucky Tobit's skinny like you."

Heaving and straining, trying to stifle their gasps, they dragged Tobit on the bucket nearer and nearer to the top. When he was only a few feet down, Dido, changing places with Cris to get a closer purchase on the rope, fell or stumbled against the millstone and contrived to loosen it so that with a loud rasping thud it shot back the final foot; the freed rope would have run back down the well but Dido flung herself on it and reached down a hand to grab Tobit. She caught his hair and he let out a yell.

"
Quiet!
Grip on my hand, boy! Cris, you hold my feet."

Somehow, all struggling together on the brink, they managed to haul him out, losing a good deal of skin in the process.

There was a noise from inside the mill. Rapid steps came toward the door and they heard the sound of bolts being drawn.

"Quick!" gasped Tobit. "
He's
in there!"

No one asked who. Without a word they flew around to the back of the mill and dropped behind a stack of old farm implements grown over with brambles.

They heard the door open and a voice shout, "Pelmett? Where the devil are you?"

Somebody ran out. There was another shout, then silence.

"They've seen the well's open," Dido guessed. "Now what'll they do? Go off into the town, most like—they'd not expect anyone to be hiding around here."

Cris, Dido, and Tobit huddled in a heap, among the nettles and the rusty harrow blades.