I slept soundly that night--a strange bed and unfamiliar surroundings
affect me not at all. Just as suddenly as I had dropped asleep, I
woke. My windows face due east--I was instantly aware that the sun had
either risen or was just about to rise. Springing out of bed and
drawing up the blind of one of the three tall, narrow windows of my
room, I saw him mounting behind a belt of pine and fir which stretched
along a bluff of land that ran down to the open sea. And I saw, too,
that it was high tide--the sea had stolen up the creek which ran right
to the foot of the park, and the wide expanse of water glittered and
coruscated in the brilliance of the morning glory.
My watch lay on the dressing-table close by; glancing at it, I saw
that the time was twenty-five minutes to seven. I had been told that
the family breakfasted at nine, so I had nearly two-and-a-half hours
of leisure. Of course, I would go out, and enjoy the freshness of the
morning. I turned to the window again, just to take another view of
the scenery in front of the house, and to decide in which direction I
would go. And there, emerging from a wicket-gate that opened out of an
adjacent plantation, I caught sight of Mr. Cazalette.
It was evident that this robust octogenarian had been taking that
morning swim of which Miss Raven had told me the previous evening. He
was muffled up in an old pea-jacket; various towels were festooned
about his shoulders; his bald head shone in the rising sun. I watched
him curiously as he came along the borders of a thick yew hedge at the
side of the gardens. Suddenly, at a particular point, he stopped, and
drawing something out of his towels, thrust it, at the full length of
his arm, into the closely interwoven mass of twig and foliage at his
side. Then he moved forward towards the house; a bushy clump of
rhododendron hid him from my sight. Two or three minutes later I heard
a door close somewhere near my own; Mr. Cazalette had evidently
re-entered his own apartment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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