"Yes," said I, "it was no doubt surprising." This, however, was not the only surprise I was to cause Cullen Mayle that night. He proposed immediately that we should cross to Tresco together, and on my objecting that we should get no one to carry us over-- "Oh," said he, "I have convenient friends in Scilly as well as inconvenient." He looked out of the window. "The tide is high, and washes the steps at the back of the inn. Do you wait here upon the steps. I will have a boat there in less than half an hour;" and on the word he hooked up his dress again and got him out of the inn. I waited upon the steps as he bade me. Behind me were the lights and the uproar of the street; in front, the black water and the cool night; and still further, out of sight, the island of Tresco, the purple island of bracken and gorse, resonant with the sea. In a little I heard a ripple of water, and the boat swam to the steps. I was careful as we sailed across the road to say nothing to Cullen Mayle which would provoke his suspicion. I did not even allow him to see I was aware that he himself had been upon Tresco on the sixth of October. It was not difficult for me to keep silence. For as the water splashed and seethed under the lee of the boat, and Tresco drew nearer, I had to consider what I should do in the light of my new knowledge. It would have been so much easier had only Helen been frank with me. Tresco dimly loomed up out of the darkness. "By the way," said Cullen Mayle, who had been silent too, "you said that one of the watchers had remained. It will be George Glen, I suppose." "No," I answered. "It is a Frenchman, Peter Tortue," and by the mere mention of the name I surprised Cullen Mayle again that evening. It is true that this time he uttered no exclamation, and did not start from his seat. But the boat shot up into the wind and got into irons, as the saying is, so that I knew his hand had left the tiller. But he said nothing until we were opposite to the Blockhouse, and then he asked in a low trembling voice: "Did you say Peter Tortue?" "Yes." There was another interval of silence. Then he put another question and in the same tone of awe: "A young fellow, less than my years----" "No. The young fellow's father," said I. "A man of sixty years. I think I should be wary of him." "Why?" "He said, 'I am looking, not for the cross, but for a man to nail upon the cross,' and he meant his words, every syllable." Again we fell to silence, and so crossed the Old Grimsby Harbour and rounded its northern point. The lights of the house were in view at last. They shot out across the darkness in thin lines of light and wavered upon the black water lengthening and shortening with the slight heave of the waves. When they shortened, I wondered whether they beckoned me to the house; when they lengthened out, were they fingers which pointed to us to be gone?