The mist grew thin before him, as though lace curtain after lace curtain was being swept back by unseen hand. The sun, the colour of a shilling, and as round, glimmered above the horizon. At his feet he could distinguish the sea silvery-twinkling; and not a hundred yards away the Head, bluff as a wall, loomed before him. His heart leapt.... Hurrah!... Once round that.... He began to run with noisy feet. A shadow stooping on the edge of the tide sprang up. "_Hell_!" came a sudden scream. CHAPTER XXII FAT GEORGE & CO. Kit's heart brought up with an appalling jerk. He dropped behind a boulder. A filthy little scarecrow of a man, trousers rolled about his knee, was standing in the sea, holding some one by the hand not ten yards away. In the mist Kit thought at first that he was paddling with a child. Then he saw his mistake. The scarecrow was holding a bare arm by the hand. That arm thrust up horribly from the water: the body to which it belonged was beneath the surface. Between his dirty teeth the man held a knife. His business was obvious. He was spoiling the dead. A huge fellow with a tawny beard spread fan-like on his chest strolled round the Head, a musket beneath his arm. "What, Dingy! got the jumps aboard again?" he growled. "I thart I yeard a chap a-walkin," trembled the scarecrow. He let the dead man's hand flop into the water. "Plenty o chaps--not much walkin," chirped a voice of one unseen. A treble laugh greeted the sally. Round the Head a boat came paddling. In it was a man fat as a sow, and not unlike one. Honey-coloured ringlets hung down to his neck. He had slits for eyes, and the great face, dough-like, was set in an ogreish smile. Kit saw before him in the flesh the worst of the nightmare imaginings of his nursery days. He began to dither like a monkey in the presence of a snake. There was a horror of the unnatural about the man that turned him faint. Here was Mammon, Mammon in the flesh; and so close that the boy could smell him. "Belike it's Black Diamond come after you, Jow!" wheezed the fat man-- "to pay you for what you done to him night afore last." The shrill voice, squeezing from that vat-like carcass, added to the terror of the man. '"Twarn't me, I tall you!" screamed the scarecrow. "It were you, Fat George; and now you're for puttin it on me." The fat man backwatered in-shore; the smile set and horrible on his face. "None o that, my lad, if you please," he husked--"that's to say if you're wishful to stay friends with George--ole George, who don't forget." Dingy Joe began to whimper. "I suppose it were me flashed my knife on the Gentleman too?" The fat man leaned on his oars. "Now," he said with manly frankness, "that _were_ me. Every man answers for his own work in this gang, and none needn't go short. I faced the Gentleman plucky, didn't I, Bandy?" "You faced him plucky from behind," chirped the voice of the man unseen.