How long I would have stayed there linking up the story, I don't know. I suppose Dirk stood silently by in deference to my obvious grief at the work of my hands; and perhaps something of the strange transformation in the face of the dead man held him, too, in a wonder of conjecture. But at last his patience was exhausted. Supposing, as I imagine, that a strong command was what was needed to put backbone into my collapsed will, he said sharply, "You put on that gear of yours, and tramp. I know the best hole for this." He nodded down at the corpse, and jerked his thumb at the pool below. I knew he meant to hide the body in Drift-Wood Cavern, and the knowledge hurt me. "No," I cried. He faced me sternly, and I hung my head. Indeed I knew there was no other way unless I wished to swing. So I began mechanically pulling on my clothes, while Dirk shouldered the dead man and set off down the cliff. When I was dressed I wiped my knife in the earth. Drawing my various weapons, my pistol, my stiletto, and the knife I had just cleaned, I looked mournfully at them, knowing full well how I delighted in them, yet hating the use to which I had so far put them. I stuffed them back into my belt in disgust, and climbed up the cliff to the _Dolphin_. I walked slowly, though I was famishing with hunger, and felt the need of a stiff glass of spirits. My mind was in a tumult, still questioning the dark affair. The course of things was clear; but the motive? Abou, I said, was merely his master's shadow. Somehow I knew that what he had done must have been for the Captain, not for himself. For the Captain he had changed from a suave and gracious minister of comfort to the semblance of that hateful old witch, and had ruthlessly sacrificed, not my father only, but the unoffending smugglers, in his zeal to serve his master. Well, he had expiated his sacrifice and his sin. And yet what had the Captain to do with it? Why had he set Abou to kill my father? And how would it affect my love for Jenny? Now not only was Worthing's blood between us, but my father's blood as well. What was my part to be? Must I take another step forward, wade deeper into the river of blood, and kill the Captain? But that I knew I could never do. Yet why had he killed my father?