by Anne Digby
'Honestly, Tish, we're so lucky, aren't we? To have parents, I mean.'
Tish nodded. 'And the things I've said! I take it all back.'
SIX
THE ROCK OF THE LION
The weather seemed very settled. The forecast for the camp fortnight was good. Cold, wet weather could have ruined it but, if this first Saturday were anything to go by, they'd nothing to worry about. It was a warm day with a light breeze and plenty of sunshine.
'It's Rebecca's birthday, tomorrow!' Tish went around telling everyone.
'Then let's have a party and sing–song tomorrow evening!' suggested Moyra Milton. 'Can we Miss Peabody? I've got my clarinet in the locker in Juniper House – and you've got your violin here, haven't you, Sue?'
Sue nodded eagerly. 'We can play some folk songs – and plenty of other things.'
'As long as you don't keep the kids up all night,' said the supervisor. 'They'll be tired after their trip.'
They were going on a coach excursion to a nature park.
'Is it really your birthday tomorrow, miss?' asked Tommy, tugging at Rebecca's shorts.
'Yes. Don't look so bothered about it.' She laughed, feeling excited. 'I suppose you've forgotten to get me a present!'
It was only meant as a joke.
There was sailing that morning – and Rebecca was one of the lucky ones to go.
Sara Willis, who was head games teacher at Trebizon and lived in a cottage in the school grounds, arrived after breakfast. She'd arranged with the Mulberry Cove Sailing School for the oldest children on the camp to have some sailing instruction during their fortnight, on days when the sea was calm. The conditions were perfect this morning.
Miss Willis read out three names.
'Amanda Hancock, Rebecca Mason and Virginia Slade. I'll need you three.'
They'd all three done some sailing and obtained their RYA Elementary Certificates, Rebecca just recently. They were to help the Sailing School instructors give the children some very basic dinghy sailing tuition in the cove.
'I'll look after Tommy this morning, then,' said Elf. 'We'll walk over to Mulberry with you and see if anything's happening on the dig yet.'
'Sue and I'll bring our four and come with you, Elf,' said Tish enthusiastically.
Margot and Mara were on washing-up duty, so stayed behind.
They all trooped over the headland with the sailing party, Blackie bringing up the rear. Up on top, Rebecca at once saw distant figures moving about on the far side of the cove, near where the bulldozer was parked. It looked as though Mrs Lazarus and her diggers had arrived and were making an early start.
'Something's happening at last,' she said to Elf, as they descended steeply. 'I think that's Lottie over by the cliffs!'
They parted company outside the big sailing hut.
'See you lunch time,' said Tish. 'Tell you all about the dig, then.'
'Fine!' said Rebecca, sorting through a chest full of life- jackets and handing one to the boy who was going to be in her boat. 'Try this one for size, Jamie.' She watched the others crossing the sand, Tommy and Blackie running on ahead.
'Be good, Tommy!' she called.
His voice carried back faintly on the breeze.
'They got a metal detector, Elf! Come on!'
'Woof!' barked the dog.
Rebecca had a marvellous morning.
There was onshore instruction to start with, the children being taught about booms, mainsails and jibsails and other parts of a sailing dinghy; followed by some knot-tying. Then, two or three to a boat, there came the practical business of getting under way from the beach, making sail and finally tacking backwards and forwards across the cove. There were eight boats out altogether.
'You're going really well, Jamie!' Rebecca said, when she let him have a turn at the tiller. 'You're picking it up much quicker than I did.'
Towards the end of the morning, a boat came alongside to starboard and one of the instructors leaned out, pointing ahead.
'We're taking a run to the island and back, to finish off with. You two are doing okay so you can follow us if you like! Just keep on my tail, Rebecca.'
'Thanks!' said Rebecca.
Although Mulberry Island, as it was called, was less than half a mile offshore, it was really exciting taking the sturdy sailing dinghy out of the sheltered cove and into the open sea.
The sea was calm today and the boat rose gently up and down on a low swell, into a frisky little breeze. 'Tack all the way out!' called the man in the boat in front. 'The wind's coming in off the sea. Coming back she'll give us a grand run in!'
As they made their way to the island, Rebecca talked to Jamie and found out more about him. He was one of the oldest children on the camp. This was his third holiday with the Pegasus Trust and he'd been looking forward to it since Easter. Although he wasn't in council care or even in a foster home, like most of the children, his mother was a single parent and in poor health and there was no other way he could have a holiday.
'Except I did go on a school trip last summer,' he told Rebecca. 'That was good, too.'
They were close up to the island now.
'I wouldn't half like to get off and explore it!'
'Me, too!' said Rebecca.
Mulberry Island rose steep and sandy-banked out of the sea, covered in scrub and brambles and a few battered trees with a derelict cottage sitting on the top – once the home of an artist. Rebecca and her friends firmly intended to investigate it one of these days, but so far had never had the chance.
'Okay! Turn about!' called the instructor.
With great care Rebecca brought the boat right round in a tight circle, as she'd been taught. This was the moment when it was easy to capsize! 'When I call out, duck under the boom and lean out to the other side, Jamie – and hold fast to the jibsheet. . .'
'Now!'
The boat had turned and suddenly the sails filled with air and they jerked forward.
'We're off!'
It was a straight, fast run back to the cove, running in front of the wind. Rebecca's hair blew over her face and she kept tight hold of the straining mainsheet as the mainsail billowed full out. Flecks of sparkling spume flew on to their shorts and orange life-jackets, quickly drying off in the sun.
'Isn't this lovely!' shouted Rebecca. 'Doesn't the cove look mysterious from here! Like a secret harbour!'
'And there's a lion guarding the entrance, miss. Look!'
'A lion?' said Rebecca in surprise.
The boy was pointing to a massive formation of brown rock that jutted out to sea on the left hand side of the cove. Rebecca had seen the big promontory many times before, but never from just this angle. Looked at face on, from out at sea, there was no doubt about it –
'You're right!' she exclaimed. 'It looks exactly like a huge lion – lying down.'
As they sailed on and a wave kicked up and showered her with spray, she thought with pleasure: 'A brown lion guarding the treasure of Mulberry Cove, down through the centuries. Isn't that romantic.'
Although Rebecca didn't know it at the time, it was the lion rock that had made Mrs Lazarus so certain she was right.
The cooked lunch, back at camp, tasted delicious.
'The dig's started!' Tish told Rebecca, through a mouthful of hot meat pie. 'Get down Blackie. Tommy, find this dog of yours some dinner, he's not having mine.'
'And guess what!' said Elf. 'Old Lottie says the six of us can come over tomorrow – all day – and help!'
'All day –?' said Rebecca. Then she remembered that the children were going off on a coach trip to the Battenbury Nature Park. The four Sixth Formers who were on the camp would be needed to help supervise them, but the rest of the Trebizon volunteers were having Sunday off. Rebecca would like to have seen the nature park, but this would be even better. What an interesting birthday she was going to have.
'Lottie's son is on the dig with her,' said Sue. 'He's Doctor Charles Lazarus – a doctor of science or geology or something. He's worked out
all the cliff slippage and things in the last seventeen hundred years, to try and pinpoint exactly where the Roman hoard should be. He's really nice. So's his wife.' As she was speaking, Tommy nodded agreement.
'They don't half give you plenty of chocolate.' He frowned. 'But I ain't so sure about Mr Johnson.'
'What's wrong with him?' asked Tish, with a grin. 'At least he lent you his binoculars when you asked!'
'Oh, I dunno,' said Tommy. 'He don't think there's any treasure, for a start.' He shrugged and then gave Rebecca a sly grin. 'I spied on you in the boat wiv 'em. I saw you ever so clear. And the island. That looks a good place. It's gotter house on it.'
'I've always wanted some binoculars!' said Rebecca. She pretended to box Tommy's ears. 'Just think, if I'd had some this morning, I could have spied on you and watched you stuffing all that chocolate.'
Sue laughed. 'Rebecca, you missed nothing.'
The afternoon was busy.
The six organized and judged a sandcastle competition on the beach for all the young campers. Afterwards, as the tide came in, Margot and Rebecca supervised a group of children who wanted to go swimming while the other four went back to camp on tea duty.
But by evening their work was done for the day and the six friends lazed around outside Rebecca's tent, swigging canned drinks, while the Fifth Years took some of the youngest children up to Juniper for their nightly hot shower.
Tommy joined the six for a while, but when he realized they were talking about school he soon got bored and wandered off. Blackie meanwhile had settled down at the end of Tommy's sleeping bag, alternately dozing and watching them, through the open tent flap.
'It's funny to think we'll be going into the Fourth next term,' said Margot, lying on her front and sucking a stem of grass.
'I wonder if we'll get a good set of juniors coming up into Court House?' mused Tish.
They started enumerating which of next term's Third Year they'd like in their boarding house and which not.
'Have you thought any more about your G C S Es?' asked Mara, serious-eyed. Rebecca was sitting on the grass with her arms clasped round her knees, looking pensive.
'Not really,' said Rebecca. She'd been thinking about something quite different, not to do with school at all. There was an image in her mind. Suddenly she got to her feet and stretched.
'Won't be long,' she said.
'If I see Tommy, I'll see he gets to bed,' called Elf.
'Right!' said Rebecca.
She let herself out of the gate and on to the sand dunes. She'd missed going to the dig with the others this morning. She had a sudden overwhelming desire to go over there now and get a look at the site – just a quick look, before dusk fell. They'd be digging there tomorrow.
She'd been thinking about the rock of the lion that must have stood on guard at the entrance to Mulberry Cove since Roman times, guarding the treasure – supposing there were any treasure. Anyway, that was the image in her mind and it sent a tingle down her spine.
Now, with an hour to go before sunset, it drew her back to the cove.
SEVEN
A ROMAN RIDDLE
It was silent and mysterious in Mulberry Cove. The sailing boats were beached for the night and the shack locked up. Over on the far side, the bulldozer had gone and the site looked deserted. Work had finished for the day. The only sounds Rebecca could hear were the screams of the gulls, the sucking and hissing of the tide on the turn and the quiet slip-slap of her own footsteps as she crossed the sand.
The sun was sinking over the sea. The shadows of the rocks and Rebecca's own shadow were lengthening.
High up on the grassy hillside above the rocky cliffs, Mulberry Castle looked down on the empty cove. Rebecca felt small and insignificant against such an impressive backdrop, a moving dot on the landscape.
When she reached the excavation site she stood half in the sunlight from the sea and half in the shadow of the cliffs.
She saw at once that the bulldozer's work had now been completed. An area about fifty metres square had been totally cleared of the half–buried rocks and boulders, the remains of cliff slippage over the centuries. The ground had been staked off and some trenches already dug that day.
Gazing all around, Rebecca saw that other areas had been similarly cleared and dug, evidence of past excavations. She remembered that this patch she saw now was to be Mrs Lazarus's last attempt.
She went down on her knees, just inside the staked area, and ran her fingers through the sand. She shivered with excitement. Romans could have trodden this very ground all those centuries ago, perhaps on a beautiful evening like this! She closed her eyes to imagine it.
Then she heard a voice coming from inside the cliffs.
It seemed to come from the nearest cave – a lilting echoing voice declaiming something in an ancient tongue. She got to her feet and stood there, transfixed by the eerie yet musical sentences as the voice grew gradually louder.
A figure walked out of the cave.
'Mrs Lazarus!' exclaimed Rebecca. 'Latin!'
The old woman stopped, and then laughed. Blinking a little as she got used to the light, she strode across. 'Do forgive me, my dear.' She recognized Rebecca from their first meeting. 'It's you. You've been able to stay on at school after all?'
'Yes!' laughed Rebecca.
They stood together in the silent cave. The sun was sinking fast now and their shadows were very long, moving imperceptibly on some nearby rocks.
'I like to come back here alone, sometimes,' said Mrs Lazarus. 'To see the cove as Cabro must have seen it. At sunset.'
'Did he write that poem?' asked Rebecca diffidently. 'Who was he exactly?'
'Cabro? His full name was Cabronius. N. Flavius Cabronius. He lived in the third century AD. He was a Roman, of course, and in command of one of the coastal patrols. Quite a hero!' Her eyes twinkled in her weather – beaten face. 'At least, that's what they all say.'
'Who all say?'
'Oh, various scholars. Historians.' She spoke contemptuously. 'He was very zealous in the pursuit of pirates. Many's the time Roman vessels carrying cargo were raided by pirates – and many's the time Cabro pursued them and recovered their booty, then made sure it was returned to the proper quarters. At least, that's what they say!'
'And you don't believe it?' asked Rebecca, in fascination.
'Not a word of it. He was certainly very brave – but rather wicked, too. One can't help feeling a certain affection for him! He tackled the pirates with courage, I'm sure. But all the best pickings he kept for himself. He must have been exceedingly wealthy!'
'How do you know all this?'
'Because when he was a very old man he wrote about his exploits. Some people who've read the texts say they're just a fanciful account of some of his adventures. But if you look a little deeper you'll see that this is an old man confessing his past misdeeds, not without humour. And proof of his misdeeds is hidden right here in this cove!'
Mrs Lazarus then explained that one of Cabro's achievements was the pursuit of a pirate ship to a point much further west than he had ever been before. It led to the capture of all on board and the recovery of gold and silver coins, pillaged from a Roman vessel that was taking a consignment of newly-minted coins round the English coast to pay the army in the north. Cabro returned some of the coins – but not all of them. According to Mrs Lazarus, he kept some of the precious gold ones for himself and hid them in Mulberry Cove!
'What – what makes you so sure?' asked Rebecca timidly. This was all so interesting!
'Well, what do you make of this sentence?' asked the old scholar. She spoke first in Latin and then translated.
Now in a cave in a distant cove lies the hero's prize, sleeping like the lion.
Rebecca's heart seemed to jump a bit.
'Can you say that again?'
Mrs Lazarus repeated it and then snorted. 'I think it's quite conclusive but some people think I'm dotty. Dotty Lottie! They contend it's just a piece of poetic embellishment.'
Sleeping like the lion!
'The big rock!' exclaimed Rebecca excitedly. 'The one round the headland there. It looks just like a lion lying down –'
'When you look at it face on, from out at sea, yes!' affirmed Mrs Lazarus. 'It's the kind of rock that would have weathered very little in seventeen hundred years. The resemblance is still there, you do agree?'
'Oh, yes,' said Rebecca. She thought for a moment. 'And the prize is sleeping – like the lion. That means he never had the chance to come back and collect it. The coins are still here!'
'Exactly.' Mrs Lazarus seemed pleased with Rebecca.
Rebecca looked at the staked out ground that they'd be excavating the next day, with new excitement. 'So the coins could be somewhere very close to us!'
'Yes,' nodded the old lady. 'The caves that are exposed now, in the cliff there, would have been quite inaccessible in Cabro's day. Charles has assured me of that. The coins would have been hidden in caves in one of the sections of cliff that has collapsed and been swallowed up into the beach. We've covered some of those sections in previous digs. This is the next most likely . . .
'It's also the last we can tackle,' she sighed. 'Everything's so expensive nowadays and the Roman Antiquities people are no longer convinced. They're only interested in the hoard, of course,' she added, slightly disdainfully. 'Almost certainly gold.'
Rebecca smiled in surprise. 'Aren't you?'
'Gold coins of the third century AD are not entirely rare,' replied the woman. 'I have one in my own modest collection. It's what the coins prove that matters!' There was such a light in her eye now. 'I know that the history books are wrong about Cabro and I am right! And I want the world to believe me.'
The intensity communicated itself. To Mrs Lazarus a priceless hoard of gold meant nothing! Only the truth – that the obscure and long-forgotten Cabronius had been something of a rogue.
It only needed one Roman coin to be found on the beach at Mulberry, Rebecca realized as she walked back to camp, and Mrs Lottie Lazarus would be well on the way to proving her theory.
It was going to be exciting helping her to look.