"But how in the world——?"
"Easily enough. I was leaning over the cliff above here, with my gun beside me, when a piece of earth gave way under my head. I went down the slope head foremost, as I guess, and my coat must have caught in the gun's trigger-guard. At any rate, it went off, and by the mercy of Heaven without wounding me; but either the noise of it stunned me or the fall must have knocked me foolish, for tumbling among the bushes that grow in the hollow above the cave's entrance, I had not the sense to catch hold, but slid through them, and clean over the edge into the sea."
"Eh? But pardon me, how can you possibly remember this?" stammered the Commandant.
"I saw it," said Vashti, quietly.
"Oh!" The Commandant stared at her, and began to understand. "So you were the mermaid!"
She nodded. "I happened to be on the rock, outside the entrance, with my small boat lying in a low spot under its eastern shelter, and so I put off to him at once. There was a strong run of water into the cave; the depth was not above three feet when the waves ran back. So I clutched hold of him—though making sure he was dead—and drew him into the cave, above high-water mark. It was hard work, though not so hard as dragging the boat after us."
"Why should you want to drag the boat so far?... You don't mean to tell me that you have been hiding here, on purpose, while the search has been going on all around you!"
Vashti laughed. "Why, of course we have! I heard you and Mr. Rogers last night. You were standing together on the very spot over which I had hauled the boat: only I had taken the precaution to smooth the sand over the track of her keel. From the ridge of rock there I launched her on the freshwater pool, and paddled her across with the Lord Proprietor safe on board. I was dreadfully afraid, while I listened to your voices, that you would cross the pool and discover her.
"It lies close?"
"About thirty yards from where we stand."