The Master of the Ceremonies

upon hisshoulder to keep him back, he drew aside the blind, opened the Frenchwindow, passed out, closed it after him, and stood there in the balcony,gazing at the heaving, star-spangled sea.

  "I can't be a man yet," he said to himself. "If I were I shouldn't feelso nervous. It is very horrid, though, the first time after that oldwoman was killed; and by some one coming up there. Ugh! it's verycreepy. I half fancied I could hear the old girl snoring as she used."

  He leaned over the balcony rails and looked to right and left, but allseemed silent in the sleeping town, and after listening for a minute ortwo he seized the support of the balcony roof, stepped over the rails,lowered himself a little, and clasping the pillar with his legs, slideasily down, rested for a moment on the railings with his feet betweenthe spikes, and then, clasping the pillar, dropped lightly down upon thepavement, to be seized by two strong hands by arm and throat, a darkfigure having stepped out of the doorway to hold him fast.

  Volume One, Chapter XIV.

  SOMETHING THROWN IN THE SEA.

  "What--"

  "Hush! Who are you? What are you doing here? Why, Morton Denville!"

  "Richard Linnell! Is it you? Oh, I say, you did give me a scare. Ithought it was that chap come again."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Why, the fellow who did that, you know," said the lad with a nodupwards.

  "But why have you stolen down like this, sir?"

  "Don't talk so loud; you'll wake the old man. Only going fishing."

  "Fishing? Now?"

  "Yes. Fisherman Dick's waiting for me on the pier."

  "Is this true?" asked Linnell sternly. "True! What do you mean?" saidthe lad haughtily. "Did you ever know a Denville tell a lie?"

  "No, of course not. But it looks bad, young fellow, to see you stealingout of the house like this, and after that ghastly affair."

  "Hush, don't talk about it," said the lad with a shudder. "But, I say,how came you here?"

  "I--I--" stammered Linnell. "Oh, I was walking along the cliff and Isaw the window open. I thought something was wrong, and I crossed tosee."

  "Did you think some one had come to run away with my sister, MrLinnell?" said the lad with a sneering laugh. "Ah, well, you needn'thave been alarmed, and if they had it would have been no business ofyours."

  Richard Linnell drew his breath with a faint hiss.

  "That's rather a sneering remark, young gentleman," he said coldly; "butthere, I don't want to quarrel with you."

  "All the same to me if you did, only if you will take a bit of goodadvice, stop at home, and don't be hanging about gentlemen's houses atthis time of night. It looks bad. There, now you can knock at the doorand ring them up and tell them I've gone fishing. I don't care."

  He thrust his hands in his pockets and strutted away, trying to appearvery manly and independent, but nature would not permit him to look likeanything but a big, overgrown boy.

  Richard Linnell drew his breath again with the same low hiss, and stoodwatching the retiring figure, after which he followed the boy along thecliff till he saw him reach the pier, where a gruff voice greeted him;and, satisfied that the truth had been spoken, he turned off and wenthome.

  "Thought you wasn't coming, lad," said Fisherman Dick. "Here, just youketch hold o' yon basket, and let's get to work."

  Morton seized the basket of bait, and together they walked to the veryend of the pier, at one corner of which was a gangway and some steps,down which they went to a platform of open beams, moist with spray, andonly about a foot above the water now the tide was high, the promenadeforming the ceiling above their heads.

  It was very dark, and the damp, salt smell of the weed that hung to thepiles was floating around, while the misty spray every now and thenmoistened their hands and faces. On all sides huge square wooden pilesrose up, looking grim and strange in the gloom, and before them thestar-spangled sea heaved and sank, and heaved and sighed and whisperedin amongst the woodwork, every now and then seeming to give a hungrysmack as if the waves were the lips of some monstrous mouth, trying toseize upon the two fishers for its prey.

  "Didn't I tell you?" said Dick Miggles: "Sea's just right, and thefish'll bite like anything. We ought to get ten shillings' worthto-night. There you are; go ahead."

  Dick had been busy unwinding a line, whose hooks he had already baited;and then, for the next quarter of an hour they were busy catching andhauling in whiting and large dabs, and every now and then a smallconger, the basket filling rapidly.

  Then, all at once, the fish ceased biting, and they sat waiting andfeeling the lines, trying to detect a touch.

  "Some one coming," said Dick suddenly, in a low whisper. "What's hewant to-night?"

  "Sh!" whispered back Morton. "Don't speak, or I shall be found out."

  "Right," answered Dick in the same low tone; and as they sat there inthe darkness with the water lapping just beneath them, and a wave comingin among the piles every now and then with a hiss and a splash, theycould hear the slow, firm tread of some one coming down the pier, rightto the end, to stand there as if listening, quite still above theirheads.

  All at once the night-breeze wafted to them the scent of a good cigar,and they knew that whoever it was must be smoking.

  At the same moment, Morton felt a tug at his line, and he knew a fishhad hooked itself.

  It was all he could do to keep from dragging it in; but he was, in spiteof his boasting, afraid of his nocturnal expedition coming to hisfather's ears, and he remained still.

  Fisherman Dick had moved so silently that Morton had not heard him; butall at once the planks overhead seemed veined with light, and the figureof the fisherman could be seen dimly, with his face close up to a holein the planking. The light died out as quickly as it shone, and theodour of tobacco diffused itself again, while the man overhead began towalk slowly up and down.

  Tug-tug-tug! How that fish--a big one, too--did pull! But Mortonresisted the temptation, and waited, till all at once it seemed to himthat the smoker must have heard them, and was about to come down, for hewas evidently listening.

  Then there was a shuffling of feet, a curious expiration of the breath,and a sort of grunt, followed by utter silence; and then, some fiftyyards away, right in front of where Morton sat, there was a faint goldensplash in the sea, and the noise of, as it were, a falling stone orpiece of wood.

  Almost at the same moment Morton noticed that his line had becomephosphorescent, and he could see it for some distance down as the fishhe had hooked dragged it here and there.

  Then there was a sigh overhead as of relief, and the steps were heardagain, gradually going back along the pier, and dying slowly away.

  Simultaneously, Morton Denville and the fisherman began hauling in theirlines, the former listening the while, to make sure that the promenaderdid not return; and then, as all was silent, their captives were drawnon to the open planking, to break the silence with flapping and beatingand tangling the lines.

  "What light was that, Dick?" said Morton, as he threw his fish into thebasket.

  "Dunno, zackly. Some way o' lighting another cigar."

  "Who was it--could you see?"

  "How's it likely I could see, squintin' through a hole like that? Some'un or 'nother stretching his legs, 'cause he ain't got no work to do, Is'pose."

  "But couldn't you see his face?"

  "See his face? Is it likely? Just you get up and look through thathole. Why, I had to look straight up, then sidewise, and then straightup again, and that bends your sight about so as you couldn't even doanything with a spyglass."

  "I believe you could see who it was, and won't tell me."

  "Hear that, now! Why shouldn't I want to tell? Says you, I'm out onthe sly, and nobody mustn't know I'm here."

  "No, I didn't," said Morton shortly.

  "Well, lad, not in words you didn't; but that's how it seemed to be, soI kep' as quiet as I could, and whoever it was didn't hear us."

  "What did he throw into the water?" br />
  "Stone, I s'pose. Some o' them dandy jacks, as looks as if theycouldn't move in their clothes, once they gets alone, nothing they likesbetter than throwing stones in the water. If it wasn't that the waveswashes 'em up again, they'd have throwed all Saltinville into the seayears ago."

  Two hours later, after a very successful night's sport, Morton partedfrom Fisherman Dick at the shore end of the pier, and ran home, whilethe owner of the lines and the heavy basket sat down on the lid, andrubbed the back of his head.

  "Yes, I did see his face, as plain as I