For a long minute he stood there, trembling, horror-stricken; then the self within him cried out, and he roused up to thought and action. That dead body would tell its own disastrous tale when the relief watch came; should he bury it here in his own grave? Yes, that cheated sepulchre should have its inmate; and he reached for the board. But no; there would not be time; it would take hours to hide it, trembling and weak as he was, something else must be done, something quick. Should he run for the dunes and leave it where it lay? If found thus, search would be made for the slayer; he would be setting the watch upon his own track. He pressed his hands helplessly to his temples, staring meanwhile upon the horror there at his feet. Then suddenly the explanation came: the man's beat ended on a rock that dropped sharply into the water; he knew, for he had noticed when he came ashore before with the funeral boat. If he could throw the body down there, it would be thought the man had walked off in the fog and gloom; no suspicion would be aroused, and he would be free from pursuit. Shivering at the contact, he seized the body and dragged it along over the shells and pebbles. Once or twice he lost his bearings in the short journey, but a rising wind blew out trailing lengths of fog before him and, aided thus, in a little while he reached his goal. But he could not see the body enter the water; it would be like a second murder, and so with eyes close shut he pushed it off and groaned in his soul to hear the splash that came from below. "God bear witness that I did not want his blood upon my hands!" Then he looked away to the dunes and took one step toward them. But the gun--it lay yonder by the graves; he might as well have left the body itself there. Hastily he returned, smoothed over the sand where the struggle had fallen, and seizing the man's gun and hat, he sped again to the rock, placing them near the ledge, that they might seem to have been dropped there in an attempt at self-preservation. Then he was free to go. Into the fog he plunged, making for where the sand-dunes rose; and as he tottered down into the underbrush beyond, he heard the sunset gun from the station boom out through the mist. He had lived a whole lifetime in the last half hour.