“Granted,” answered the skipper shortly; and that was all.
There was an uneasy atmosphere of enigma here. But we were abroad after adventure, when all was said, and had no cause to complain.
I stood holding my uncle’s hand, while we ran our last knot for home in the twilight. As we neared the hill its peculiar shape was gradually lost, and instead, looking up from below, we saw the cap of a broken tower showing over its swell. Then hill and ruin dropped behind us, a shadowy bulk, and of a sudden we were come opposite a sandy cleft cutting up into the cliff, and below on the shingle a ghostly group of boats and shore-loafers, though still no light or sign of houses.
We brought to, the sails flapping, and the skipper sent a long melancholy boom sounding over the water from a horn. It awoke a stir on the beach, and presently we saw a boat put off, and come curtseying towards us. It was soon alongside, revealing three men, of whom the one who sat steering was a little remarkable. He was immensely tall and slouching, with a lank bristled jaw, a swarthy skin, and, in spectral contrast, eye-places of such an odd sick pallor as to give him the appearance, at least in this gloaming, of wearing huge spectacles. However, he was the authoritative one of the three, and welcomed us civilly enough for early visitors to Dunberry, hoping we should favour the place.
“None so well as thee, Jole, since thy convarsion,” bellowed the skipper, as we pushed off.
There followed a chuckle of laughter from the ketch, and I noticed even that the two men pulling us creased their cheeks. Their companion, unmoving, clipped out something like an oath, which he gruffly and hastily coughed over.
“The Lord in His wrath visit not the scoffer,” he said aloud, “nor waft him blindfold this night upon the Weary Sands!”
In a few minutes we slid up the beach on the comb of a breaker, and half a dozen arms were stretched to help us out. One seized the carpet-bag, another—our tall coxswain’s itself—the despatch-box; and thereby, by that lank arm, hangs this tale. For my uncle, who was jealous of nothing in the world but his box, in scrambling to resecure it from its ravisher, slipped on the wet thwarts, and, falling with his head against a corner of the article itself, rolled out bleeding and half-stunned upon the sand.
I was terribly frightened, and for a moment general consternation reigned. But my uncle was not long in recovering himself, though to such a dazed condition that a strong arm was needed in addition to his stick to help him towards the village. We started, a toilful procession, up the sandy gully (Dunberry Gap its name), I carrying the precious case, and presently, reaching the top, saw the village going in a long gentle sweep below us, the scoop of the land covering it seawards, which was the reason we had seen no lights.
It had been Uncle Jenico’s intention to look for reasonable lodgings; but this being from his injury impracticable, we let ourselves be conducted to the Flask Inn, the most important in the place, where we were no sooner arrived than he consented to be put to bed, with me in a little closet giving off his room. It was near dark by the time we were settled, and feeling forlorn and bewildered I was glad enough, after a hasty supper, to tuck my troubles between the sheets and forget everything in sleep. But how little I guessed, as I did so, that Uncle Jenico had, in falling, taken possession, like William the Conqueror, of this new land of our adoption.