"No, ma'am, not passengers, but officers and sportsmen: gentlemen coming out gunning after the ducks and the wild-fowl," he added, seeing she looked puzzled, and pointing to a flock of birds feeding at some distance from them.
"And are you out every night?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, not every, but most nights, ma'am."
"Last night, for example?"
"Yes, miss, we was out, me and Harry here, not with any customers, but by ourselves; a main dark night it was too; but we hadn't bad sport, considering."
"Did you--did you meet any one else between this and Hurst Castle?"
"Well, no, ma'am," said the old man with a low chuckle. "It ain't a place where one meets many people, I reckon. Besides the ducks, a heron or two was about the strangest visitors we saw last night. Now, miss, here we are at the beach; you go straight up there, and you'll find the castle just the other side. When you come back, please shape your course for that black stump you see sticking up there; tide's falling, and we sha'n't be able to bide where we are now, but we will meet you there."
Lightly touching the old man's arm, Pauline jumped from the boat, and rapidly ascending the sloping head, found herself, on gaining the top, close by a one-storied, whitewashed cottage, in a little bit of reclaimed land, half garden, half yard, in which was a man in his shirt-sleeves washing vegetables, with a big black retriever dog lying at his feet. Accosting him, Pauline learned that the house was the telegraph station, whence the names of the outgoing and incoming ships are telegraphed to Lloyd's for the information of their owners. In the course of farther conversation the man said that the Masilia had anchored there during the night, had got her steam up and was off by daybreak; he took watch and watch with his comrade, and he turned out just in time to see her start.
Pauline thanked him and returned to the boat; but she did not speak to the old man on her return passage; and when she reached the fly which was waiting for her, she threw herself into a corner and remained buried in thought until she was deposited at the station.
A few minutes after, the train bound for Weymouth arrived. Through confusion similar to that of the morning she hurried along, criticising the passengers on the platform and in the carriage, and with the same vain result. The train proceeded on its way, and Pauline walked towards the hotel with the intention of getting some refreshment, which she needed. Suddenly she paused, reeled, and would have fallen, had she not leant against a wall for support. A thought like an arrow had passed through her brain--a thought which found its utterance in these words: