Again Herries looked out of the window, and saw that two men,--yokels apparently,--were guarding it below; he stole to the door, and strained his hearing to listen. Many people were coming and going in the passage, and he heard the faint murmur of voices. What was going on in the death-chamber, he could not think. The partitions of the inn, doubtless constructed long ago for smuggling purposes, were unusually thick, and even had a man spoken loudly in the next room, the listener would have heard nothing but the sound. In that case, as he argued, he could not have saved the dead man, even had he been awake. Probably the poor wretch's throat had been cut in his sleep. And who had killed him? And why had he, Angus Herries, a stranger, a wanderer on the face of the earth, been dragged into so hideous an affair? These questions he asked himself constantly, while the slow hours dragged onward. The village--Desleigh was its name, as he heard later--was a long distance from the nearest town, whence a police inspector could be called; and the local constable, without doubt, had two or three of such villages to attend to. It was quite four or five hours since he had been shut up in his room, and no one had been near him. To pass the time, and escape from the terrible thoughts which tormented his brain, Herries dressed himself as neatly as he could. On leaving Pierside he had taken nothing with him, as his enemy the captain had detained all his luggage. He had nothing but the clothes he stood up in, and a few shillings,--say ten. On arriving at the "Marsh Inn," he had possessed fifteen, but five of these he had given for bed and board. He cursed the inn. Had he not halted here, this trouble would never have come upon his already over-burdened shoulders. And yet, he could not be sure of this. He had always been Jonah the unlucky, and Jonah he would remain, so far as his limited vision could see, until the end of his life. Throughout five and twenty years of existence he had suffered nothing but trouble. Everything went wrong with him. This new disaster was all of a piece with the rest of the pattern, that was being woven,--against his will, it would seem--on the looms of life. He wondered, with a sigh, why God permitted so many troubles to befall him, since he could see no good reason for their coming to him so persistently. Then out of sheer desire to do something, he searched his pockets for the remains of his poor fortune. The ten shillings had vanished. Yet Herries knew that he had counted them on the previous evening, immediately before he retired to bed, and he had placed them in the right-hand pocket of his trousers,--eight shillings and four sixpences. Alarmed at the loss, which meant everything to him, he felt in every pocket, looked under his pillow, examined the floor, but could find no trace of the money. "How on earth can I get to Tarhaven?" he asked himself, and then it came upon him with a shock, that he was not a free man.