His blood-thirst assuaged, his vengeance partly accomplished, and his spirit comforted by his desperate deed, the murderer probably paused for a time, and began to consider how he could conceal his crime. No sign of movement anywhere. Apparently the dull sounds of the blows had fallen on no mortal ear. Presently, taking up one of his working ropes, he mounted the jetty, and walked to the shore, where there lay a pile of stone ballast. It was white granite, discharged from a sailing-ship that had come from Hong Kong in ballast, and it had been purchased for the Varadero. Selecting a suitable piece, he carried it to the end of the jetty, and lowered it by the rope into the launch. Then, descending, he firmly lashed the two bodies together, and fastened the stone to them. Then he drew the bodies to the side, preparatory to launching them overboard. Now an incident occurred. It is thought that one of the two men was not quite dead, notwithstanding his dreadful wounds, and that recovering consciousness, and perceiving what awaited him, seized the rail in his death-grasp, and resisted the attempt to throw him over. The patron must once again have had recourse to his murderous bolo, bringing it down on the clenched hand, for a deep cut was found on the rail with blood driven into the pores of the wood by that savage blow. The tendons severed, the hand unclasped, and next moment the bodies slid over the rail and down underneath the keel of the launch in some four fathoms of water. Throwing the steel coal-breaker after them, the patron's next task was to wash away the traces of his crime, and this he did fairly well so that nothing was noticed, till, suspicion being aroused, a careful scrutiny was made, with the result already mentioned. It is not known whether the boy knew anything of the tragedy performed so near him, for he was never questioned, having apparently disappeared off the face of the earth as soon as the bodies were found. What the patron did afterwards can only be conjectured. Guilty of two atrocious murders, and of savage mutilation of the slain, could he have composed himself to a quiet and dreamless slumber? Or was his imagination fired to further revenge by dream-pictures of his once-loved mistress in the arms of her youthful lovers? All that is known is that he presented himself to the foreman early on the Tuesday morning, and reported the absence of the two men without showing on his dark visage the slightest sign of trouble or emotion.