Presently they sat on the edge of the boat over which Stanley's sense of proprietorship had been so grievously outraged.
“What do you know, Christian, or what do you suspect about Signor Bruno?” asked Hilda suddenly.
Stanley was running across the sands towards them, and Christian, seeing his approach, avoided the question by a generality.
“Wait a little longer,” he said. “Let me have Trevetz's answer to confirm my suspicions, and then I will tell you. Suspicions are dangerous things to meddle with. In imparting them to other people it is so difficult to remember that they are suspicions and nothing more.”
At this moment Stanley arrived and threw himself down breathlessly on the warm sand.
“Chris!” he exclaimed, “come down here and look at these seams in the boat—the damp is there still.”
The boat was clinker-built, and where the planks overlapped a slight appearance of dampness was certainly discernible. Christian lay lazily leaning upon his elbow, sometimes glancing at the boat in obedience to Stanley's accusatory finger, sometimes looking towards Hilda, whose eyes were turned seawards.
Suddenly he caught sight of some words pencilled on the stern-post of the boat, and by the merest chance refrained from calling Stanley's attention to them. Drawing nearer, he could read them easily enough.
Minuit vingt-six.
“It certainly looks,” he said rising, “as if the boat had been in the water, but it may be that the dampness is merely owing to heavy dew. The boat wants painting, I think.”