I felt that the woman was following me with her eyes, and didn't dare to hurry; for it seemed to me, so worked up was I, that if I had broken into a run she would have seen at once what I had come for, and would have contrived to get this great thing for herself. The mere fact of my displaying any interest at all in such a useless cumbersome hulk as a Talayot must have filled her with suspicion. But then I had thought of this, and had corrected her when she guessed me for French, telling her my true nationality, knowing that the Continental reputation of the Englishman stands good for any unexplainable eccentricity. And so I clogged my feet with an effort, and walked on, soberly looking ahead of me.
So great was the maze of walls that it was difficult to tell where the road ran for more than a score or so of yards ahead. But at last I traced its sweep close by where a great single-slab altar stood on its massive pillar, with a sacred stone-circle jutting out of the bushes around it. On the other side was the pyramid, sorely broken by man and the weather, but still showing dressed gray stone courses in patches amongst the rank scrub which bristled over it. Even from there I could make out that the general contour of its base was circular, and not square as I had somehow or other expected, and I began to see trouble in finding that side "nearest the sea" where Lully had dug into the entrance-way.
As I drew nearer, the tumbled nature of the stone-work disclosed itself further, and I began to have fears lest the central chamber should have caved in and hidden the Recipe effectually and for always by crumbling its lettering into dust. But then I called to mind other Talayots I had seen before near Mahon and Alayor and Mercadal and Ciudadella, where the entering passage led from aboveground by a rapid incline, and where the cavity, when it existed, had doubtless been near the apex; and from this I took heart, thinking that whether or no there had been a chamber in the upper part of the building, and whether or no it existed still, didn't particularly matter to me. The Diary had certainly pointed to a room stowed away beneath the very keel of the edifice; and as long as that stood firm, the rest might telescope to any extent for all I cared.
By this time my leisurely pace had brought me up alongside the Talayot, which loomed big and squat at the other side of the wall. I turned and looked behind me. The fat woman at the farm was out of sight. Then I climbed the wall, and from the top glanced down the road which led from Alayor, and saw a sight which made me curse like a kicked arriero. Walking briskly up the stony track was a little man in unmistakably British tweeds. "An infernal prying tourist," thought I, "by all the powers of evil. Bear-led by a native, and coming to see Talaiti de Talt for a thousand. If he sees me he'll spot me at once and want to chum, and then he'll get inquisitive and won't go away."
Down I dropped into cover.
CHAPTER X.
WITH A THREE-ANGLED HOE.
It is curious how no two people can speak the same words with identical intonation. Perhaps this is noticeable to some men more than to others. I know some folks never forget a face, others a walk; but for myself, though these things may pass from memory, a voice once heard never escapes me. I suppose it is because I have been at much pains to distinguish between sounds. I'm rather musical, you know.
And so as I lay squatted there beneath a sloe-bush, and the tones of a voice grating as those of the corncrake came to me through the chinks in the wall, I knew that Weems was at large once more, and pressing on with his errand.