The Moon Rock

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  It was a strange story which Charles Turold heard by that grey Cornishsea--a story touched with the glitter of adventurous fortune in the sombresetting of a trachytic island, where wine-dark breakers beat monotonouslyon a black beach of volcanic sand strewn with driftwood, kelp, deadshells, and the squirming forms of blindworms tossed up from the bowels ofa dead sea. It was there in the spell of solitude thirty years before thatRobert Turold's soul had yielded to temptation at the beck of hismonstrous ambition.

  That, however, was the end--or what Robert Turold imagined to be theend--of the story. The listener was first invited to contemplate a scenein human progress when men gathered from the four corners of the earth andunderwent incredible hardships of hunger, thirst, disease, lived likebeasts and died like vermin for the sake of precious stones in the earth.Thalassa brought up before the young man's eyes a vivid picture of anAfrican diamond rush of that period--a corrugated iron settlement of onestraggling street, knee-deep in sand, swarming with vermin and scorpions,almost waterless, crowded with a mongrel, ever-increasing lot of needyadventurers brought from all parts of the world by reports of diamondswhich could be picked out with a penknife from the dunes and sandy shinglewhich formed the background of the villainous "town." In the great wavesand ridges of sand which stretched everywhere as far as the eye couldreach, runaway scoundrels of every shade of colour wormed on their bellieswith the terrible pertinacity of ants, sweating and groping in thatchoking dust for the glittering crystals so rarely found.

  Thalassa had been infected by the diamond fever like so many more. Likeother young men he wanted plenty of money for women and grog--what else,he asked, could a man get for money that was worth having? In those dayshe was a sailor before the mast, lacking the capital for such delights. Sohe deserted his timber tramp when she touched at Port Elizabeth, and setout for the diamond fields with another runaway--the ship's cook, who hadan ambition to have his meals cooked for him for the rest of his life,instead of cooking meals for other people.

  The fields were far to the north. Thalassa reached them after a terriblejourney through the stony veldt and sandy desert, broken by barren hills.His companion died of the hardships, and was buried in the desert whichstretched to the wandering course of the Orange River. Thalassa securedhis license and went "prospecting."

  "Dost a' know anything about diamonds--digging for them?" he broke off toask.

  Charles Turold shook his head.

  Thalassa lapsed into silence for some moments, his eyes fixed on the seahissing among the black wet rocks at his feet, then said--

  "A man's a fool most of his days, but sometimes he can be such a fool thatthe memory 'll come up to mock him when he lays dying. Here was I,deserting my ship and throwing away a year's wages and a'most my life toget to these damned fields, thinking to pick up diamonds cut andglittering like I'd seen them in London shops, when as soon as I'd clappedeyes on the first diamond I saw dug up I knew that I'd left behind me atthe other end of the world as many rough diamonds as there was in thewhole of that dustbin of a place--diamonds that didn't have to be dug for,either, only I didn't know them when I saw them."

  His narrowed eye gleamed craftily, a mere pin's point of expression in thedirection of Charles, as though expecting a question. But Charles keptsilence, so he went on with his story. He let it be understood that hisluck on the fields was of the worst possible description--never a solitarystone came his way. But he had no heart for digging. He was alwaysthinking of the diamonds in that remote spot which he had ignorantly letslip from his grasp, like the dog in the fable dropping the substance forthe shadow. He would have gone back to look for them, but he'd spent mostof his little capital in that wild-goose chase, and the miserable remnantoozed away like water in a place where the barest necessaries of life costfabulous prices. Soon he became stranded, practically penniless.

  It was this precarious moment of his fortunes which his star (his evilstar, he insisted on that) selected to bring him into juxtaposition withthe man whose life was to be inexorably mingled with his own from thattime henceforward. The actual meeting place was a tin-roofed grog shantykept by a giant Kaffir woman and a sore-eyed degenerate white man, whosesubjection to his black paramour had earned for him among the blacks onthe field the terrible sobriquet of "White Harry." Here, one night,Thalassa sat drinking bad beer and planning impossible schemes forreturning to his diamonds at the other end of the world. The place wasempty of other customers. The Kaffir woman slumbered behind the flimsyplanking of the bar, and "White Harry" sat on the counter scraping tunesout of a little fiddle. Thalassa remembered the tune he wasplaying--"Annie Laurie." Upon this scene there entered two young men,Englishmen. Thalassa discerned that at once by the cut of their jib.Besides, they ordered Bass beer. Who else but Englishmen would order Bassbeer at five shillings a bottle in a God-forsaken place like that?

  "_He_ was one of them." Thalassa moved his hand vaguely in thedirection of St. Fair churchyard. "Smart and lively he was then--not likewhat he was afore he died. I took a fancy to him as soon as I set my eyeson him. He was a man in those days, and I knowed a man when I saw 'un. Ididn't care so much for the looks of the other 'un--Remington was hisname, as I heered afterwards. Well enough for some tastes, but too much ofthe God Almighty Englishman about him to suit me. A handsome chap he was,this Remington, I'm bound to say--young and slim, wi' a pink face like agirl's, not a hair on it, and lookin' as though he might a' turned out ofa bandbox. Him--Turold--had a moustache, and his face was a dark 'un, butI liked him for all his black looks--though not so black in those days,either. More eager like."

  Charles Turold found himself trying to picture Robert Turold in the partof a smart lively young fellow, and failing utterly. But Time took thesmartness out of a man in less than thirty years. It had also taken theliveliness out of Robert Turold for good and all.

  Thalassa went on with his story. The young men were served with their beerat five shillings a bottle, and sat down in a corner to drink it. Theytalked as they sipped, and Thalassa listened. His original idea that theywere young men of wealth (because of the Bass) was soon dispersed by thetrend of their conversation. They had gone out from England to make theirfortunes on the fields, but had come a cropper like himself, and werediscussing what they'd do next. The fair-haired one, Remington, was allfor getting back to England while they had any money left, but Turold wasdead against it. There were plenty of diamonds to be found, and he wasgoing to have some of them. He'd been talking to a man who was just backfrom the interior with a story of a river beach full of diamonds, and hewas fitting up an expedition to go back and get them. Turold wanted tojoin in, but Remington said he'd heard too many stories of diamonds to bepicked up for the asking. Had he forgotten about the cursed Jew who got ahundred pounds out of them? Turold said this was different--the man hadbrought back a little bottleful of diamonds. Remington replied with asneer about "salting." They argued. "Suppose we dropped the last of ourmoney?" Remington asked. "No worse than crawling back to England likewhipped curs, poorer than we set out," said the other. Remington said hedidn't want to go back to England like that, but he'd sooner face it thanrun the risk of being stranded in that hell of a place. Turold answered hewas not going back till he'd made a fortune. He said (Thalassa rememberedhis exact words): "I don't care how I do it, Remington, but I will doit--mark my words." "Show me a more sensible plan than this, and I'm withyou," Remington had replied.

  It was at this stage that Thalassa was seized with an inclination tothrust himself into the dialogue. Striving to explain his reasons at thatdistance of time, he said it was Robert Turold's last remark which reallydecided him--did the trick, as he phrased it. Actually it must have been aprompt recognition of the kinship between two lawless souls.

  He left his seat and went across to where the two young Englishmen wereearnestly talking, unaware that they had been overheard. He approachedthem as one shipwrecked sailor might approach two other castaways maroonedon the same rock. They all wanted m
oney, and they all wanted to get awayfrom that God-forsaken hole. Diamonds they were after? Well, he could takethem to a place at the other end of the world where there were enoughdiamonds in the rough to make them all rich for life.

  After the first surprise at his interruption they heard him in silence,and then plied him with questions. Where were these diamonds? In avolcanic island in the South Pacific. Where about? They couldn't expecthim to tell them that. It was Robert Turold (Thalassa seemed to haveaddressed himself principally to him) who asked him how he knew that thediamonds were still there. Thalassa's reply was that they were buried in abig box, and the island was out of the run of ships. What sort of a bigbox? Turold had asked. Thalassa replied (perhaps reluctantly) that the boxwas "a kind of a coffin," and that there was a dead man inside of it aswell as the diamonds, but he, at all events, was not likely to run offwith them.

  Remington and Turold were startled by this answer, and conferred hastilyapart. They returned to ask more questions. They wanted to know how thebody and the diamonds had got there in the first instance, but that was astory which Thalassa refused to reveal. That had nothing to do with it, hesaid. The ship which had buried the man there had gone down afterwardswith all hands, so nobody knew about the diamonds except him.

  After that Remington became the chief questioner, Robert Turold merelylooking on, his dark eyes frequently meeting Thalassa's. It seemed asthough he must have realized that these last replies concealed a storybetter left unprobed. But Remington wanted to know why Thalassa had comesearching for diamonds in that part of the world when he knew of plenty inanother, and Thalassa had replied, in all simplicity, that it was becausethe Almighty had endowed him with more muscles than brains, and he hadn'trecognized the worth of the stones at the time. In fact, he didn't knowthat they were diamonds. His experience on the fields had improved hisknowledge in that respect, and he now knew that he had left behind him onthe lonely island enough diamonds in the rough to make them all rich--twobottlesful, and some in a leather bag, where the dead man also kept one ofthose digging licenses which the damned German officials sold you--whatdid they call it? Prospector's license--a _schurfschein_? saidRemington. Yes, that was it. He knew it again as soon as he got one on thefields.

  Turold and Remington again talked together in whispers, and then Turoldasked Thalassa how he proposed to get the diamonds. Thalassa had his planready. They must get down to the Cape and get a boat to Sydney fromCapetown. That was the jumping-off place. From Sydney they were to take aboat to--another place. The island was a bare two days' sail from the"other place," and Thalassa proposed to hire a cutter on the mainland andsail over to it. He was no navigator, but he could find his way back tothat island again at any time.

  Turold seemed inclined to agree, but Remington put in another of his sharpquestions. Why did he want to bring two strangers into the business? Whatwas to prevent him getting the diamonds on his own account, withoutsharing with anybody? Thalassa replied that he had no money to finance theexpedition, and even if he got the diamonds they'd be no use to him. Howcould a rough seaman like himself, who could hardly write his own name,turn the stones into the large sum of money they represented? That was anenterprise which called for civilized qualities of education and addresswhich he did not possess. From his standpoint it was an even deal betweenthem. They were to supply the money and intelligence in return for hisknowledge, and they would share and share alike.

  It was Robert Turold who ultimately settled the decision--winning over thereluctant Remington with words which Thalassa had never forgotten. He alsorecognized the risk, but he thought it was well worth taking. It seemedthat the two had a little more than L200 left between them--just aboutenough to carry the thing through. What was the use of returning toEngland with that paltry sum, he had asked. He spoke of a girl--some girlwho was waiting in England for Remington while he made his fortune abroad.Was he going to go back to her penniless? "Even if this doesn't turn outright," he went on, "we'll have reached another part of the world, with afresh chance of making money, instead of being poor in England, thatbreeding-ground for tame rabbits, where poverty is the unforgiveable sin.""I liked him for those words," said Thalassa, "for they came from a manwhose thoughts were after the style of my own. 'Twas they decided theother chap, and next morning we set out for Capetown. From there we gotpassages in a cargo boat for Sydney."

  Charles found it easier to visualize this picture than the former. Thedeparture of the three upon such a wild romantic venture had in itselements all the audacity, greed, and splendour of youth, and he also wasyoung.

  Thalassa went on with his story.

  During the voyage to Sydney, Robert Turold used to talk to him on deck atnights after Remington had gone to his bunk. It was in these solitary decktramps under glittering stars that Thalassa first heard from the other'slips of the Turrald title: the title for which the fortune he was seekingwas merely a stepping stone--the means to obtain it. "Night after night hetalked of nothing else," said Thalassa, "and I knew he would do what hewanted to do." It was easy to gather from his story that his originaladmiration for Robert Turold soon grew into a deeper and stronger feeling.There was something in the dead man's masterful ambitious character whichexercised a reluctantly conceded but undoubted fascination upon hiscompanion's fierce spirit.

  Such were their relations when they reached Sydney and set out on afurther voyage to the other place which Thalassa was so reluctant to name.On arriving at the "other place" they made their way to its east coast,which was the starting point of their journey to the island. From a brownman living on the coast Thalassa hired a smart little ketch which thethree of them could easily handle, and in this they embarked for theisland from a beach which curved like a white tusk around a blue bay.

  They did not reach the island for six days--through baffling winds, andnot because they did not steer a right course. As Thalassa had said, therewas no difficulty in finding it, for they had only been one day at seawhen the smouldering smoke of the distant volcanic cone came into vision,making an unholy mark against the clear sky which they never lost again.Gradually they beat nearer until they made it--a circular ragged highridge jutting abruptly from a deep sullen sea, with a red glow showingfitfully in the smoke of the summit.

  There was an outer reef, but Thalassa knew the passage, and steered theketch through a tortuous channel above sunken needle-pointed rocks to alittle sheltered harbour inshore. Here they made the ketch fast, andlanded on a beach of volcanic violet, where they sometimes sank knee deepinto sulphuric water, and felt squirming sea things squelch beneath theirtread. Above this margin of violet-black sand, deposits of volcanic rockand lava rose almost perpendicularly, enclosing the central cone in a kindof amphitheatre.

  The stones they had travelled so far to obtain were there waiting forthem. Thalassa hurried over that part of the story, narrating it in barestoutline with suspicious glances directed at his listener's intent face.Apparently he led his companions to the spot as soon as they landed--up apath through a gap in the crater wall, across a furrowed slope alla-quake, where jets of steam issued from gurgling fissures in snakyspirals. On the other side of this dreary waste Thalassa led the wayacross a ledge to firmer ground and a grave. Charles gathered that theoccupant of the grave had been coffined in a seaman's chest in hisclothes: "There he was, with his bottles of diamonds in his coat pockets,and more in his leather bag in his breast pocket, just as I left himtwelve months afore to go to the other end of the world looking for whatI'd buried." A grim smile curved Thalassa's face as he uttered thesewords; the idea seemed to contain elements of humour for him.

  "They were diamonds, then?" said Charles curiously.

  "Ay; they were diamonds right enough. Him--Turold--said they were diamondsas soon as he uncorked one of the bottles and poured a few into the palmof his hand. There was some rare big ones in one of the bottles--enough tohave brought all those fools tumbling out of Africa if they'd know ofthem. From some papers they found on the chap Turold said he'd must a-beenpr
ospecting in nigh every part of the world."

  "How did he come to be buried there with his diamonds, in that lonelyspot?" asked Charles wonderingly.

  "He was a passenger, and died as we was passing the island. 'Twas theskipper's fancy to give him a land burial. But that doesn't matter adump--it's outside the story." He turned his eyes away from Charles.

  Dusk had fallen before they finished their search, and Thalassa would notundertake the risk of threading the boat out from the tortuous reefpassage in the darkness. They decided to camp on the island for the night,preferring the sulphur-impregnated air ("A lighted match would blaze andfizzle in it like a torch," Thalassa declared) to the cramped discomfortof their little craft. They brought some food ashore, and made a flimsysort of camp above high water, at the foot of the encircling walls of thecrater. There they had their supper, and there, as they lounged smoking,Remington in an evil moment for himself suggested that they should sortthe diamonds into three heaps--share and share alike. Robert Turoldagreed, and they emptied the stones out of the bottles and leather baginto a single heap. Remington took one bottle and Robert Turold another;to Thalassa fell the empty bag. As the stones were sorted one was to beplaced in each receptacle until the tally ran out.

  It must have been a strange spectacle--so strange that it made a lastingimpression on the least imaginative mind of the three, for he tried in hisrude way to reproduce it on that Cornish beach after the lapse of thirtylong years. He threw bits of rock on the sand to indicate the positions inwhich they had sat. From his description Charles pictured the sceneadequately enough: the violet-black beach, exhaling sulphuric vapours, theyellow-grey volcanic rocks, the gurgling ebullitions of a geyser throwingoff volumes of smoke high above them, and the faces of the three men(ruddy in the fire-glow, white in the moonlight) intent on the division ofthe heap of dull stones scattered on a flat rock between them. Thalassaremembered all these things; he remembered also how startled they were,the three of them, at the unexpected sound of a kind of throaty chucklenear by, and turned in affright to see a large bird regarding them fromthe shadow of the rocks--a sea bird with rounded wings, light-colouredplumage, and curiously staring eyes above a yellow beak. When it saw itwas observed it vanished swiftly seaward in noiseless flight.

  The division, commenced good-humouredly enough, soon developed theelements of a gamble between Robert Turold and Remington. They forgotThalassa's existence as they argued and disputed over the allotment ofcertain stones. The foot or so of flat rock became the circumference oftheir thoughts, ambitions, and passions--their world for the time being.In that sordid drama of greed Thalassa seemed to have comported himselfwith greater dignity than his two superiors by birth and education. Heeven took it upon himself to reason with them on their folly. Perhaps heknew from his own seamy experience of life what such things developedinto. At all events, he urged his companions to defer the division untilthey returned to civilization and could get the spoils appraised by eyesexpert in the knowledge of precious stones. But they would not listen, so,not liking the look of things, he withdrew a little distance off andwatched them, leaning against a rock. That was his tacit admission (soCharles interpreted this action) that he was on Robert Turold's side, andfelt that his own interests were identical with those of the master mind.The two, left to themselves, wrangled more fiercely than ever. There wereunpleasant taunts and mutual revilings. The listener by the rock learntdefinitely what he had previously suspected--that there was bitter bloodand bad feeling between the two men, buried for a time, but now revivedwith a savageness which revealed the hollowness of their supposedreconciliation. It was about a girl, some girl in England with whom theyhad both been in love. Thalassa gathered that Remington had left Englandas the favoured suitor. He had (in Thalassa's words) "cut Turold out."

  Charles Turold could not forbear a faint exclamation of astonishment. Hisbrain reeled in trying to imagine the austere figure of Robert Turoldsquabbling over a girl and some diamonds on a lonely island in the SouthPacific. He was too amazed at the moment to see the implications of thispart of the story.

  "They went on snarling and showing their teeth, but not biting," continuedThalassa, "sorting out the little stones all right, but quarrelling overthe bigger. There was two--the biggest in the bunch by far--which theykept putting aside because they couldn't agree about the sharing of them.At last it came about that there was only these two big 'uns left, lyinglike two beans on the bit o' rock, side by side. Before I could guess whatwas likely to happen Turold grabbed them up quick, and put them in hisbottle. 'These two are mine, Thalassa's and mine,' he said. 'You've hadyour share, Remington.' Remington sprang from the rock quick as a snake.'One's mine,' he said. But Turold was up as quick. 'It's not for you,' hesays, with his dark smile. 'We'll put it against the girl you filched fromme, and call it an even deal. What does a happy lover want with diamonds?''Damn you!' cries the other, and hit him in the face. They both went down,scuffling and panting in the sand. I stood where I was, for I weren'tgoing to come between them till I saw how it was going to be. Presently Icould see that Remington was stronger, and that Turold was getting theworst of it. After a bit Turold called out, 'Thalassa!'

  "I ran down at that fast enough, and got out my knife as I went. They'dslipped down the sloping beach half-way to the sea, writhing like a coupleof the blind-worms that I kept stepping on, going over and over so quickthat I couldn't do anything at first. But one of them was sobbing in hisbreath as though he was pretty well finished, and I guessed it was Turold.Then I saw Remington's face on top, and before they could swing roundagain I got a good stroke in his neck where it gleamed white in themoonlight. The blood jumped out warm on my hand, and he rolled over soquick that I thought I had killed him. But as I stooped over him he was uplike a flash, staggering up the steep beach, his feet plopping and suckingin the water underneath. Turold was on his feet by that time, breathinghard, getting back his breath. 'After him--quick!' he says to me, his faceblack with rage--'he's got the diamonds.'

  "I ran after him up the beach, but he heard me coming and had the start ofme. He had firm ground under him by then, and was tearing along the rockstowards the path I'd taken them that afternoon, turning round now andagain to look back, the blood glistening in the moonlight on his whiteface. There we was--him going higher and higher, me after him, and Turoldstanding below on the beach, staring up at the two of us.

  "Run my best, I couldn't get near him. I suppose he thought he was donefor if I caught him, and by that time my blood was pretty well up. I hadone pull over him--I knew the island, and he didn't. The path he wastaking led to the top of the island, where the crater was, with a kind ofwall of rocks round it. But before you came to that there was a great holewhich fell down God Almighty knows how deep, and was supposed to have beenanother volcano at some time or other. This hole was divided into two by anarrow ridge running right across it, and the path Remington was on tookhim straight to the edge. So he'd either got to go across this ridge whenhe come to it or turn back and be caught.

  "He was a long way ahead when he come to it, but he never stopped. He justgave one glance down at me, and went on to the ridge. I watched himbalancing along it like a man on a tight rope, mounting higher and higher,for the ridge went up steep on the far side. Thinks I to myself, 'You're aplucky one,' then all of a sudden I heard a shout from below, and lookeddown. There stood Turold, waving me out of the way. He'd been to the boatfor a gun we'd brought with us, and was taking aim at Remington. The nextthing I saw was Remington turning round on the ledge to come back to myside, having found out, I suppose, that the ridge would take him into thecrater. Just as he turned I heard the shot. It must have winged Remingtonpretty bad, because he went tumbling off the ridge head first, like a mantaking a dive into the water. I turned and climbed down to where I'd leftTurold. His face was all aglow with rage. 'The infernal scoundrel!' hesaid, then--'Did you get the diamonds?' 'How was I to get them when Inever caught him?' I said. 'Then we'll get them off his body in themorning,' he said in a
low tone. 'You'll never do that,' says I. He asksme why not, turning on me a face as savage as a dog's. 'Because whicheverside he's dropped he's safe from us,' I said. 'There's a hole that noman's ever seen the bottom of on one side of the ridge, and on the other astinking lake of green boiling sulphur. When you shot him you sent himinto one or the other, so you can say good-bye to him and the diamonds.''Oh!' he cries, when he heard that--just like that; then after a bit hepoints up the path, and asks me to go back and have a look for him. I wentback as far as the ridge. The moon was clear as day, shining on thatinfernal green lake on the one side, and into the deep hole on the other.The lake was bubbling and stewing in the moonlight like a witchpot, andthe other side of the ridge was just black emptiness, and there was nosign of Remington--I knowed there couldn't be. Back I went again, and as Iwas climbing down the path to where Turold was standing I saw somethingglinting in the black sand at his feet, and when I got there I picked upthe bottle of diamonds where Remington must have dropped them whenstruggling with Turold. I gave them to Turold. 'And now,' says I, 'let'sget out of here. The moon's bright enough to let me find my way throughthe reefs, and this island ain't a healthy place to stay too long on. Iknow it, and you don't.' He was glad enough to follow me to the boat, andwe got through on a good flowing tide."

  Thalassa stopped abruptly, as though to leave on his listener's mind animpression of that furtive departure on a dark whispering sea beneath ablood-red moon.

  "You got back to the mainland?" queried Charles, as he remained silent.

  "Ay--and to England. Afore we got there Turold had persuaded himself thatRemington slipped off the ridge accidental, and that he missed him when hefired."

  "Perhaps his conscience pricked him. Go on."

  "There's nowt much more to tell. Turold got me my share of the money, andthen we parted. He offered to invest it for me, but I wasn't going totrust no banks--not I. It took me two years to waste it on gambling andwomen. Then I took to sea again. That lasted another year. Then I foundmyself in 'Frisco, where I shipped in a four-masted barque and come homeround the Horn. I was pretty sick of the sea after two bad goes ofrheumatic fever, so I made up my mind to hunt up Turold. I found him aftera while. He didn't seem best pleased to see me at first, but he said Icould stay till he had time to think out what he could do for me. That wasthe beginning of it. We never parted again, him and me, until he wascarried out of yon house feet first. We got used to each other's ways, andI was worth all he paid me because I saved him worry and expense. He wasall for saving, in those days. Married he was too, to a little timid thingof a girl who was in fear and trembling of him. 'Twas a black day for herwhen she married that headstrong stubborn devil. 'Mr.' Thalassa she alwayscalled me, poor woman. I married a maid-servant they had. That wasTurold's idea--he thought by that way he could get his household lookedafter very cheaply by the pair of us. I wasn't keen on marrying, but itdidn't make much odds one way or the other, for no living woman, wife orno wife, would have kept me in England if I'd wanted to get out. As ithappened, I never did. I stayed on, going from place to place where theywent--where Turold took us."

  "Whom did my uncle marry?" asked Charles.

  "You might a' guessed that. 'Twas the girl t'other had cut him out of. Ithought the masterful devil'd get her when Remington was out of the way,but I asked him once straight out, and he said yes, it was the same girl.She was a pretty timid little thing in those days, but I don't know whythey was both so mad after her. However, there it was."

  "And do you think that after all these years, Remington is really alive?"said Charles, looking at him earnestly. "Do you think it was he whomurdered my uncle?"

  "Happen maybe, happen not. The night he was killed I found him in a rarefunk in his room. He rang his bell like a fury, and when I went up heswore he heard the footsteps of Remington just afore, running round therocks outside of Flint House just as he heard him pattering along therocks on the island that night. I didn't believe 'un then, but I'm not sosure since. If he's come back to get Turold it's for sure he's stillsomewhere about, waiting his chance to get me as well. I'm keeping my eyeopen for 'un--walked the coast for miles, I have, looking for him. Hewon't take me unawares, same as Turold." His eyes searched the cliffsbehind them.

  "You may not recognize him if you meet him. It is thirty years since yousaw him. A man changes a lot in thirty years."

  "That's true, 'tis a thought which never crossed my mind." Thalassa's lookwas troubled.

  "As you've told me this story you'd better leave it in my hands, and notgo looking for anybody with that knife of yours."

  "What be you going to do?"

  "I must go to Scotland Yard and tell them your story. It's the onlychance."

  "And get me into trouble?"

  "There's not much fear of that. In any case, you must stand that, forSisily's sake."

  Thalassa nodded his acquiescence. "Better be careful yersel' getting backto London. The police here is watching for you. They've been a' FlintHouse more than once, looking for both of you."

  "It's a risk I must take, nevertheless," said the young man, rising fromhis seat as he spoke. "It's for Sisily's sake. Good-bye, Thalassa, andthank you for what you've told me."

  Thalassa did not reply or offer to accompany him. From his seat on therocks he followed Charles's ascent up the narrow path with contemplativeeyes.