A softened whistle came from her lips, and then there came from the ground the dusky form of the man who called himself Ben Heer. He salaamed profoundly.
"Well!" the woman demanded impatiently. "Well?"
"Well, indeed, my mistress," the sham Ben Heer replied calmly. "It fell out as you arranged. Behold a puff of wind carried away the masts, and behold the oars came into fragments. Then the boat began to fill and now lies bottom upward at the foot of the cliff."
"But he might have been a powerful swimmer."
"He was no swimmer at all. I saw everything."
"It was not possible for him to be picked up?"
"Not possible, my mistress. There was no boat, no sail to be seen. The boat foundered and there was an end of it. I waited for some time and I saw no more."
Mrs. May nodded carelessly. She might have been receiving the intelligence of the drowning of a refractory puppy. She betrayed neither regret nor satisfaction.
"Of course, they will guess," she said. "When they come to examine the boat and the oars they will see at once that there has been foul play. Once more they will know that the enemy has struck a blow."
"My mistress is all powerful," Ben Heer murmured.