Nasmyth rose and swept his knife-haft across the strings of the mandolin. For a moment he saw something like horror in Martial’s wet face, and then the man, who gasped, went down headforemost into the water. Martial was nearly a dozen yards astern when his head came out again, and he slid away with the tide, with his white arm swinging furiously. George sat down upon the deck, and expressed his satisfaction by drumming his feet upon the planking while he laughed.
“He’s off,” he said. “Might have a high-power engine inside of him. Guess he’s going to scare those schooner men ’most out of their lives. It’s quite likely they won’t keep anchor watch when they’re lying snug in a place of this kind.”
Nasmyth managed to control his laughter, and went down to divest himself of his draperies. When he came up again, George reported that he had just seen Martial crawling up the schooner’s cable, and in another few moments 157 what appeared to be a howl of terror rose from the vessel. It was not repeated, and shortly afterwards Nasmyth went to sleep.
Martial remained on board the schooner that night, and Nasmyth was not surprised when he failed to appear next morning. Acton had come back with his party when a man dropped into the boat astern of the schooner, and pulled towards the Tillicum leisurely. Everybody was on deck when he slid alongside, and, standing up in his boat, laid hold of the rail.
“I’ve a message for Mr. Acton,” he said, holding up a strip of paper.
Acton, who took the paper from him, was a trifle perplexed when he glanced at it.
“It seems that Martial didn’t stay at that ranch last night as I thought he had done,” he remarked.
Mrs. Acton, who sat next to Miss Hamilton, looked up sharply. She was a tall woman with an authoritative manner.
“Where is he?” she inquired.
“Gone back to Victoria,” said her husband, who handed her the note. “It’s kind of sudden, and he doesn’t worry about saying why he went. There’s a little remark at the bottom that I don’t quite like.”