"What's that?" said I, pointing to something blackened and scorched.

The landlord picked it up.

"It is a piece of corduroy."

"And here's a bone b.u.t.ton," said I. "The ague was a sham, the fire a device to rob you. He came here without a penny piece and burnt his breeches last night. He has robbed you, he has robbed me, and he will reach the Scilly Islands first. How far is it to Rockbere?"

"Twelve miles."

"I must walk those twelve miles?"

"Yes."

"Will I get a horse there?"

"It is doubtful."

"He has a day's start then at the least."

So after all, though the horse did not stumble, nor the rider lie quiet by the roadside, he did not ride out of the forest at a gallop, and down the green bank into the open s.p.a.ce beyond.

CHAPTER VI

MY FIRST NIGHT UPON TRESCO

I walked that day into Rockbere, and taking the advice of the innkeeper with whom I lodged, I hired a hack and a guide from him the next morning and struck across country for the sea; for he a.s.sured me that I should most likely find a fishing smack at Topsham whose master would put me over to the Scillies, and that if the wind did but favour me I should reach the islands sooner that way than if I had the quickest horse under me that was ever foaled. It was of the greatest urgency that I should set foot on Tres...o...b..fore Cullen Mayle. I had to risk something to achieve that object, and I risked the wind. It was in the northeast when I started from Rockbere and suited my purpose finely if it did but hold; so that I much regretted I was not already on the sea, and rode in a perpetual fear lest it should change its quarter. I came to Honiton Clyst that night, and to Topsham the next day, where I was fortunate enough to find a boat of some thirty tons and to come to an agreement with its master. He had his crew ready to his hand; he occupied the morning in provisioning the smack; and we stood out of the harbour in the evening, and with a steady wind on our quarter made a good run to the Start Point. Shortly after we pa.s.sed the Start the wind veered round into the north, which did us no great harm, since these boats sail their best on a reach. We reached then with a soldier's breeze, as the saying is, out to the Eddystone Rock and the Lizard Point.

It was directly after we had sighted the Lizard that the wind began to fall light, and when we were just off the Point it failed us altogether. I remember that night as well as any other period in the course of these incidents. I was running a race with Cullen Mayle, and I was beginning to think that it was not after all only on account of his peril that it was needful for me to reach Tres...o...b..fore he did.

These last two days I had been entirely occupied with the stimulation of that race and the inspiriting companionship of the sea. The waves foaming away from the bows and bubbling and hissing under the lee of the boat, the flaws of wind blistering the surface of the water as they came off the land towards us, making visible their invisible approach; the responsive spring of the boat, like a horse under the touch of a spur--these mere commonplaces to my companions had for me an engrossing enchantment. But on that evening at the Lizard Point the sea lay under the sunset a smooth, heaving prism of colours; we could hear nothing but the groaning of the blocks, the creaking of the boom's collars against the masts; and the night came out from behind the land very peaceful and solemn, and solemnly the stars shone out in the sky. All the excitement of the last days died out of me. We swung up and down with the tide. Now the lights of Falmouth were visible to us at the bottom of the bay, now the Lizard obscured them from us. I was brought somehow to think of those last years of mine in London.

They seemed very distant and strange to me in this clean air, and the pavement of St. James's Street, which I had daily trodden, became an unacceptable thing.

About two o'clock of the morning a broad moon rose out of the sea, and towards daybreak a little ruffing breeze sprang up, and we made a gentle progress across the bay towards Land's End; but the breeze sank as the sun came up, and all that day we loitered, gaining a little ground now and then and losing it again with the turn of the tide. It was not until the fifth evening that we dropped anchor in the road between St. Mary's Island and Tresco.

I waited until it was quite dark, and was then quietly rowed ash.o.r.e with my valise in the ship's dinghy. I landed on Tresco near to the harbour of New Grimsby. It was at New Grimsby that d.i.c.k Parmiter lived, Clutterbuck had told me, and the first thing I had to do was to find d.i.c.k Parmiter without arousing any attention.

Now on an island like Tresco, spa.r.s.ely inhabited and with no commerce, the mere presence of a stranger would a.s.suredly provoke comment. I walked, therefore, very warily towards the village. One house I saw with great windows all lighted up, and that I took to be the Palace Inn, where Adam Mayle and Cullen used to sit side by side on the settle and surprise the visitors by their unlikeness to one another.

There was a small cl.u.s.ter of cottages about the inn with a lane straggling between, and further away, round the curve of the little bay, were two huts close to the sea.

It would be in one of these that d.i.c.k Parmiter lived, and I crept towards them. There was no light whatever in the first of them, but the door stood open, and a woman and a man stood talking in the doorway. I lay down in the gra.s.s and crawled towards them, if by any chance I might hear what they said. For a while I could distinguish nothing of what they said, but at last the man cried in a clear voice, "Good-night, Mrs. Grudge," and walked off to the inn. The woman went in and closed the door. I was sure then that the next cottage was the one for which I searched. I walked to it; there was a light in the window and the sound of voices talking.

I hesitated whether to go in boldly and ask for d.i.c.k. But it would be known the next morning that a stranger had come for d.i.c.k; no doubt, too, d.i.c.k's journey to London was known, and the five men watching the house on Merchant's Point would be straightway upon the alert. Besides d.i.c.k might not have reached home. I walked round the hut unable to decide what I should do, and as I came to the back of it a light suddenly glowed in a tiny window there. I cautiously approached the window and looked through. d.i.c.k Parmiter was stripping off his jersey, and was alone.

I tapped on the window. d.i.c.k raised his head, and then put out the light, so that I could no longer see into the room; but in a moment the window was slowly lifted, and the boy's voice whispered:

"Is that you, Mr. Mayle?"

I drew a breath of relief. I was ahead of Cullen Mayle, though he had stolen my horse.

"No," said I; "but I have come on Cullen Mayle's business."

The boy leaned out of the window and peered into my face. But voices were raised in the room beyond this cupboard, and a woman's voice cried out, "d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k!"

"That's mother," said d.i.c.k to me. "Wait! I will come out to you."

He closed the window, and I lay down again in the gra.s.s, and waited there for perhaps an hour. A mist was coming up from the sea and thickening about the island; the starlight was obscured; wreaths of smoke, it seemed, came in puffs between myself and the house, and at last I heard the rustling of feet in the gra.s.s.

"d.i.c.k," said I in a whisper, and the lad came to me.

"I remember you," he said. "You were at Lieutenant Clutterbuck's. Why have you come?"

"Upon my word," said I, "I should find it difficult to tell you."

Indeed, it would have taken me half the night to explain the motives which had conjoined to this end.

"And now that you are come, what is it you mean to do?"

"d.i.c.k," I returned, "you ask the most disconcerting questions. You tramp up to London with a wild story of a house watched----"

"You come as a friend, then," he broke in eagerly.

"As your friend, yes."

d.i.c.k sat silent for a moment.

"I think so," he said at length.

"And here's a trifle to a.s.sure you," I said. "Cullen Mayle is not very far behind me. You may expect him upon Tresco any morning."

d.i.c.k started to his feet.

"Are you sure of that? You do not know him. How are you sure?"

"Clutterbuck described him to me. I overtook him on the road, and stayed the same night with him at an inn. He robbed me and robbed the landlord. There was a trick at the cards, too. Not a doubt of it, Cullen Mayle is close on my heels. Are those five men still watching the house?"

"Yes. They are still upon Tresco. They lodge here and there with the fishermen, and make a pretence to burn kelp or to fish for their living; but their business is to watch the house, as you will see to-night. There are six of them now, not five."

He led me as he spoke towards the "Palace Inn," where a light still burned in the kitchen. The cottages about the inn, however, were by this time dark, and we could advance without risk of being seen. d.i.c.k stopped me under the shadow of a wall not ten yards from the inn. A red blind covered the lower part of the window, but above it I could see quite clearly into the kitchen.

"Give me a back," whispered d.i.c.k, who reached no higher than my shoulder. I bent down and d.i.c.k climbed on to my shoulders, whence he too could see the interior of the kitchen.

"That will go," said he in a little, and slid to the ground. "Can you see a picture on the wall?"

"Yes."

"And a man sitting under the picture--a squat, squabby man with white hair and small eyes very bright?"