Once or twice Allan saw his head bobbing amid the white foam and his upthrown hands, that had nothing to clutch at, till the waves dashed him again and again, as if in wild sport, among a row of great wooden dolphins which are placed in the shingle there to break the fury of the incoming sea, and stand up like a line of gigantic teeth, and in less than a minute Hawke Holcroft vanished from sight! Then a long breath escaped Allan. 'The sea has done it not I, though richly did he merit at my hands the fate he has met,' thought he, as he hurried away to alarm the sentinels and castle guard; but all too late to succour Holcroft in any way or even to search for his body. Darkness had set in now, the fury of the sea was increasing, and if Hawke Holcroft was found at all, it would be as a drowned man, with the fatal diamonds in his possession, when the tide ebbed and the long stretch of seaweed and shingle was left dry. But he might never be found at all, and lie, as the skeletons are still lying there, among the timbers of the _Royal George_. Allan knew that he was due with his regiment at Woolwich on the morrow, and, being full of rage and bitter disappointment with disgust at the whole of this recent event--too full to have explanations with his mother, or hear aught that Olive Raymond might, as he naturally thought, be artful enough to advance, perhaps to brazen out--intent only on quitting the scene and, if possible, of forgetting a situation so degrading and repugnant to his pride--he resolved to write to his father renouncing his cousin for ever; and, throwing himself into a cab, drove straight to the railway station and took the first train to London. Hence it was that he returned to Puddicombe House no more. And as the train swept clanking along the line, amid the monotony of its sound the words of Olive's song, with what he deemed her accursed raillery underlying them, came gallingly back to his memory, with painful reiteration, 'I know a maiden fair to see, Take care! She can both false and friendly be, Beware, beware! Trust her not. She is fooling thee.' 'And for what a wretched creature she has dared to fool me!' he thought, while a bitter malediction hovered on his lips. In due time, with all his comrades of the Black Watch, he found himself on board the _Nepaul_, and, after she had steamed out of the Albert Dock, amid the deafening cheers of thousands, even amid all the bustle and high military enthusiasm that surrounded him, he felt half mad with grief, mortification, and fury. Night and day his mind was full of angry and bitter dreams; a conviction of Olive's guilt and the shame of her discovery were ever before him. Brave young Allan Graham was stricken to the heart; yet he bore himself graciously and gallantly, though a conviction grew strong in his mind that he would find his grave in the land he was going to. CHAPTER XIX. IN THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.