Part 34 (1/2)

'Again!' he insisted. The rope stretched taut and he gripped it even tighter till his knuckles whitened.

'I must have help!' came the voice again. 'Wait a moment.'

Ben rolled his eyes. To come so close to rescue...

'I'm, not going anywhere,' he whispered ruefully. The rope went slack and Ben swallowed anxiously. If only he could keep still now he might be all right.

There was a loud splash behind him and Ben remembered the figures he had seen.

'Not now!' he lamented.

He trid to swivel himself round but immediately felt the mud tighten its grip. Instead he stared ahead and waited for the figures to reach him.

To his immense surprise, it was Sal Winter who toppled down into the mud before him.

Despite her size and the great weight of her mud-filled green coat, the captain did not sink as Ben had. Clearly he'd had the misfortune to stumble into a pocket of quicksand.

But Winter was still in trouble. Her wooden leg had sunk deep into the mud, she was exhausted, and then Captain Stanislaus appeared like a devil from the darkness, his cutla.s.s flas.h.i.+ng in the moonlight.

'Sal!' cried Ben. The captain swung round, her leg sunk in the mud.

'Ben, my lad,' she gasped. 'You made it.'

Ben was about to say that he hadn't made it very far but it didn't seem the most appropriate time. He felt Stanislaus's looming presence behind his back.

Stanislaus managed to find a semi-firm spot and stood there, both hands on hips, looking down at his enfeebled enemies.

'Well, well. Two pretty birds for my table it seems. How sad that they are to be so easily taken.'

He lifted his cutla.s.s above Ben's head and Ben braced himself for the killing blow, which he knew would decapitate him.

With a roar of fury, Winter launched herself at the Pole.

Ben realised with a start that she had unbuckled her wooden leg and it stood there now, stranded in the mud, the leather straps that had held it in place sliding down into the murk.

The big woman crashed into Stanislaus and they fell together into the marsh.

Stanislaus let out a m.u.f.fled roar as he 'splashed down, but then one of Winter's hands was round his throat while the other pummelled his head. His long hair billowed over his face like weed as his head was forced backwards into the mud.

'Do you think I would let ye win after all these years?'

spat Winter, her face a mask of righteous wrath. 'I shall pursue you to perdition. My shade will haunt yours. I will never rest!'

Ben wanted desperately to help Winter, to make certain that Stanislaus went to his watery grave. But he could only watch helplessly as the Pole slipped out from Winter's grasp, pulled himself between her legs, and jumped on her back, grappling her like a bear.

Winter roared with frustration and punched repeatedly at Stanislaus's face but, unbalanced by the loss of her false leg, she toppled forward and Stanislaus had only to step aside to watch her fall flat on her face into the mud.

The Pole stood up straight, his face twisted into a grimace of hatred, his chest heaving with exertion.

'Now it comes, Winter. Feel my blade open your throat.

Ye shall haunt me no more.'

Ben saw the cutla.s.s flash down and, with the reactions of a tiger, reached forward and looped the trailing end of the rope around Stanislaus's foot.

As the blade sang past, he hauled on the rope and Stanislaus came cras.h.i.+ng back to the ground, landing on his back and smacking the wind out of himself.

Winter recovered at once and struggled to her knees.

'Thank 'ee Ben!' she gasped, lifting her own sword and steadying it over Stanislaus's throat.

The Pole let out a long, miserable groan. Ben saw the rope whip across the mud flat like a sidewinder and grabbed desperately at it.

It tautened at once and he heard the voice of his rescuer again.

'There's three of us, lad. Hold on!'

Ben wound the rope around his hands once more but he was unable to take his eyes off the scene before him.

Winter paused before delivering the final blow to her hated enemy.

'Goodbye, then,' she said with a smile, the moonlight glinting off her silver nose.

Stanislaus gritted his teeth and stared up at Winter. 'I curse you, Winter. With my dying breath I curse you.'

Winter laughed. 'You'd not be the first.'

There was a short, loud crack and Ben looked round. He was just beginning to slide from the mud and thought for a moment that the rope had snapped.

But it was still firm in his hands and, as he s.h.i.+fted and writhed, he began to be pulled free of the dreadful mud.

He looked quickly round. Sal Winter was no longer kneeling above the prostrate form of Stanislaus. She was lying on her back, blood pumping from a huge hole in her neck.

Ben realised at once that the sound had been a shot. He could already see figures from the beached s.h.i.+ps racing across the mud towards them.

He began to scrabble at the great, filthy ma.s.s around him as his rescuers pulled from the sh.o.r.e. Then, in one swift movement, he was free and lying flat out on the mud.

Stanislaus was lying there too, bewildered and not quite sure what had happened..

He looked over at Ben and then, with shocking speed, jumped to his feet, almost delirious with joy. He kicked Winter's body and swung round to face the exhausted Ben.