None the less, throughout the silent meal to which we four sat down together, neither the girls nor Van Tree appearing, were my thoughts taken up with the business which was to follow. I heard our host, who was to go with me, explaining that there was a waterway right up to the dyke, and that we would go by boat; and heard him with apathy. What matter how we went, if such were the object of our journey? I wondered how the man's face would look when we came to turn him over, and pictured it in all ghastliest shapes. I wondered whether I should ever forget the strange spasmodic twitching of his leg, the gurgle--half oath, half cry--which had come with the blood from his throat. When Lindstrom said the moon was up and bade me come with him to the boat, I went mechanically. No one seemed to suspect me of fear. I suppose they thought that, as I had not feared to kill him, I should not fear him dead. And in the general silence and moodiness I escaped notice. "It is a good night for the purpose," the Dutchman said, looking about when we were outside. "It is light enough for us, yet not so light that we run much risk of being seen." I assented, shivering. The moon was almost at the full, and the weather was dry, but scud after scud of thin clouds, sweeping across the breezy sky, obscured the light from time to time, and left nothing certain. We loosed the smallest boat in silence, and getting in, pulled gently round the lower end of the island, making for the fringe of rushes which marked the line of division between river and fen. We could hear the frogs croaking in the marsh, and the water lapping the banks, and gurgling among the tree-roots, and making a hundred strange noises to which daylight ears are deaf. Yet as long as I was in the open water I felt bold enough. I kept my tremors for the moment when we should brush through the rustling belt of reeds, and the willows should whisper about our heads, and the rank vegetation, the mysterious darkness of the mere should shut us in. For a time I was to be spared this. Master Lindstrom suddenly stopped rowing. "We have forgotten to bring a stone, lad," he said in a low voice. "A stone?" I answered, turning. I was pulling the stroke oar, and my back was toward him. "Do we want a stone?" "To sink the body," he replied. "We cannot bury it in the marsh, and if we could it were trouble thrown away. We must have a stone." "What is to be done?" I asked, leaning on my oar and shivering, as much in impatience as nervousness. "Must we go back?" "No, we are not far from the causeway now," he answered, with Dutch coolness. "There are some big stones, I fancy, by the end of the bridge. If not, there are some lying among the cottages just across the bridge. Your eyes are younger than mine, so you had better go. I will pull on, and land you."