“If there is any land too much in the world,” said he, “put me to walk upon its shore, and it will vanish before me yard by yard. My breath is blasting powder; my feet are earthquakes. I must drown if I live long enough.” He walked off towards the cliff, and paused at its edge, looking down gloomily on the leaning shaft of the well. “He is thinking of Abel and his book,” I whispered to Harry as we followed. Suddenly he turned to me, and put his arm through mine with an air emotional and apologetic. “Dear lad,” he said, “you mustn’t consider my moods. I talk to myself, Richard--the bad habit of a lonely man. What is that thing, now? I have wondered before this.” I told him. “Ah!” he said, with a bleak jocosity: “let well be. It should have confronted me six years ago; and I see it only now, the moral of all my wanderings. Yet in a good hour is it spoken, Richard, since chance has brought me to your company again. Or is it destiny, which leading me to neglect this scrap of shore hitherto, points its lesson at the end with the broken shaft yonder? Let well be. I am hungry.” So we sat down then and there and got out our provisions. They put astonishing comfort into us, and we two boys, at least, grew hilarious. Sound-livered and hardened, we took no thought of chill; and indeed the weather for the time of year was balm. A light glistening fog still slept over everything; there was no breath of wind, and the whisper of the surf came up to us drowsily. “Now, this wreck,” said Joshua presently: “where will it be?” Harry jumped to his feet. “Mighty!” he exclaimed. “We must be thinking of moving if we want to pull out to it. Tide’s at ebb, Dicky, and near the turn. Thereabouts it lies, Mr. Pilbrow, on the Weary Sands; but we can’t just make it out in this haze.” “Well, for the boat,” I said, scrambling up; and we all made for the Gap together. It was then half an hour past midday. “A bad time,” said I. “What fools we were not to think of it before! There won’t be a soul about.” There was one soul, however, it appeared--a gaunt solitary figure, which, as we neared the head of the sandy slope, we could see silhouetted against the sky--a figure, too, which, from its restless craning attitude, one might have thought was expecting us. Harry edged up to me, and was on the point of whispering, when he caught Joshua’s eyes fixed upon him. He giggled, and looked silly. “I was thinking, sir,” began he, “that that man there----” and then he stopped. “Well, what about him?” said the other. “Why,” said Harry, so confused as to forget himself--“if--if you want to know about smugglers, he’s the chap to tell you, that’s all.” I nudged my friend. “Well,” he muttered peevishly; “I’ve not said anything, have I? Rampick can look after himself.” Joshua did not answer, and we went on--and in the same moment Rampick was gone.