"Maybe she does know more than we do. But how does she know it? There's something awfully queer about this whole business."
CHAPTER XXI
THE EXPLANATION
Although Whistler was quite sure "Old Mag," as she called herself, possessed no powers of divination, he knew she did have certain knowledge that he considered she had no moral right to have.
Here she was, an ignorant old creature living on a well nigh uninhabited island off an isolated coast, with some mysterious means of information upon subjects that she should know nothing about.
She claimed not to have seen the other party of castaways; yet she knew at once that Mr. MacMasters and his companions were from a craft that had been blown up miles away from her cabin, and completely out of sight and hearing of this island.
Whistler did not believe any fishing boat, or other craft, had brought this information to Mag. There had been no vessel in sight when the Kennebunk's tender was blown up by the floating mine.
The scrap of a letter addressed to "Herr Franz Linder" he had found in the cabin connected the old crone, in Whistler's mind, with the German spy system. She was of Teutonic extraction herself.
Clearly the old woman was trying to befool her visitors. She probably possessed some local celebrity as a witch or wise woman.