"That is the sixth man. He came to Tresco while I was in London. I
found him here when I came back two days ago. But I had seen him
before. He had come to Tresco before. His name is George Glen."
"George Glen!" said I. "Wait a bit," and I took another look at the
man in the kitchen. "He was quartermaster with Adam Mayle at Whydah,
eh? He is the stranger you brought over to St. Mary's Church on the
day when Cullen Mayle sat in the stocks."
"Yes," said Dick, and he asked me how I knew.
"Clutterbuck told me," I replied.
From the inn we walked some few yards along a lane until we were free
of the cottages, and then leaving the path, mounted inland up a hill
of gorse. Dick gave me on the way an account of his journey homewards
and the difficulties he had surmounted. I paid only an indifferent
attention to his story, for I was wholly occupied with George Glen's
presence upon the island. Glen had come first of all to visit Adam
Mayle, and was now watching for Cullen. What link was there between
his two visits? I was inclined to think that George Glen was the clue
to the whole mystery. In spite of my inattention, I gathered this much
however from Dick. That tramp of his to London was well known
throughout the islands. His mother had given him up for dead when he
went away, and had thrashed him soundly when he returned, but the next
day had made him out a great hero in her talk. She did not know why he
went to London, for Dick had the discretion to hold his tongue upon
that point.
So much Parmiter had told me when he suddenly stopped and listened. I
could hear nothing, however much I strained my ears, and in a moment
or two Dick began to move on. The mist was very thick about us--I
could not see a yard beyond my nose; but we were now going down hill,
so that I knew we had crossed the ridge of the island and were
descending towards the harbour of New Grimsby and the house under
Merchant's Rock.
We had descended for perhaps a couple of hundred yards; then Dick
stopped again. He laid a hand upon my arm and dragged me down among
the gorse, which was drenched with the fog.
"What is it?" said I.
"Hush," he whispered; and even as he whispered I saw a sort of brown
radiance through the fog a long way to my left. The next instant a
speck of clear light shone out in the heart of this radiance: it was
the flame of a lantern, and it seemed miles away. I raised myself upon
my elbows to watch it. Dick pulled my elbow from beneath me, and
pressed me down flat in the grass; and it was fortunate that he did,
for immediately the lantern loomed out of the fog not a dozen yards
away. I heard it rattle as it swung, and the man who carried it
tramped by so near to me that if I had stretched out my hand I could
have caught him by the ankle and jerked him off his feet. It was the
purest good fortune that he did not detect us, and we lay very still
until the rustle of the footsteps had altogether died away.
"Is that one of them?" I asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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