"It takes me all my time to keep clear of my own," said I.
His narrow eyes seemed to approve of me.
"You're not Irish?" he enquired.
"No; I've enough to answer for without that."
"You ought to be," said he. "You've got some wit. Damn the English, and double-damn the Scotch! Well we're evidently both going in the other direction, so good-bye to you!"
What was I to make of this? What was to be thought of the whole morning's adventure? Only one thing was perfectly clear to me: that I had a very dangerous, very determined, and very artful enemy in this island—or, almost certainly, several enemies, and that instead of the hunter I had become the hunted. They might fear me but they certainly did not fear to attack me whether by day or night. Had I sat down behind that trellis-like wall as I intended, I shivered a little to think of my fate. I should have been shot at twelve inches range, and that would have been the end of my spy hunt. I began to realise that it was much longer odds on my being dead within the next forty-eight hours than on my getting on the traces of that oilskinned man.
And then as I was walking back thinking these none too cheery thoughts, something put the parachute into my head. I had not thought of it before since the first night when I hid it. It took me a little time to get my bearings, but I found my way to the clover field at last and then made for the low wall with the bed of rank grass and docken leaves beneath it. I hunted up that wall and down that wall, but never a sign of the parachute was there.
"That is how they've bowled me out!" I said to myself. "They have heard by this time of the missing balloon; then they found the parachute, saw that the dates coincided, and spotted me!"