"I advise you very strongly to keep that sort of talk to yourself, at any rate for the present. To begin with, Sir Caesar is missing, and we have grave fear he will not be found again alive: so that it is not seemly. But, further, I must caution you that you parted from him using threats, and your threats have been reported." "Turn me out of Saaron, he would--" began Tregarthen, but checked himself at the moment when passion seemed on the point of over-mastering him. "Well, sir, I didn't shoot him, if that's what they are telling," he added, quietly. "I should be sorry, indeed, to suspect any such thing. But let me tell you the rest. Hearing the shot, Leggo made good speed back to Carn Coppa. His master had disappeared; but away to the left, near the edge of the cliffs, he saw three children running down the hill, and he declares that those children were yours." Tregarthen put up a hand and rubbed the side of his head. "_My_ children?" he repeated. "I can't make this out at all, sir. What could my children be doing anywhere near Carn Coppa?" "You had best ask them." "No," said Tregarthen, picking up his faggots, "I never brought them up to be afraid of the truth. Come with me to the house, sir, and they shall tell what they know." He led the way, and the Commandant followed him indoors to the kitchen, where they found Ruth stooping over the great hearth, already busy with the morning fire. Across the planching overhead sounded the patter of the children's bare feet. In a couple of minutes they came running down together, laughing on their way, and the Commandant had to wonder again--as he had wondered before, on the afternoon when he had sailed them home from Merryman's Head--at their beautiful manners. They were neither shy, nor embarrassed. Indeed, it was the Commandant who felt embarrassment (and showed it) as he asked them to tell what had taken them to Piper's Hole, and what they had seen there. "We saw a mermaid," answered Annet. "She was sitting on the rock outside the cove; and first she was singing to a kind of harp, and afterwards she sang as she combed her hair. And then someone fired a gun at her from the cliffs, and she disappeared, and we were frightened and ran away. We did not see who fired the gun, nor if she was wounded. It was not brave of us to run away so quickly, and we have been sorry ever since." "What nonsense is this?" growled their father. "Annet, my child, we tell the truth--all of us--here on Saaron." "It may have been a seal," hazarded the Commandant. "I am told that Piper's Hole used to be a famous spot for seals." But Annet lifted her chin and answered, her eyes steadily raised to her father's face. "No, it was not a seal; it was a mermaid. She sang and combed her hair just as I told you. It was beginning to grow dark, but we could see her quite plainly." She turned for confirmation to Linnet and Matthew Henry, and they both nodded.