"Yes!" he said slowly. "The Swallow should be now at Ravenglass. That is true." He seemed to be assuring himself of the fact and speculating on its import.
"You sent no message to prevent it sailing, after I left you?"
"None!" said he.
I drew a breath of relief.
"But we are now at the fifteenth of November. How long did you bid the captain wait?"
Mr. Curwen seemed of a sudden to grasp my design, though, as he showed me in a moment, he had got no more than an inkling of it.
"Until you hailed him," he replied, rising from his chair in some excitement "He was to wait for you. That was the top and bottom of his orders. There was no time fixed for your coming."
"Then," said I, in an excitement not a whit less than his, "the Swallow will be waiting now up the coast?"
In the little room we could hear the surf booming upon the sand. I flung open the window. The sound swelled of a sudden, as though the music of a spinet should magically deepen to an organ-harmony.
"Your Swallow," I exclaimed, "lifts and falls upon the very waves which we hear breaking on the sands."