"Why, Jim," said the Rector, coming out of the sitting-room, "what's the matter with you? Had too much jam for breakfast?"

"No," I said. "But I feel faint. I feel sick. Can I go to sit in the garden for a minute?"

"Yes," he answered. "Certainly. I'll get you a glass of cold water."

I was really too far gone to pay much heed to anything. I think I told them that I should be quite well in a few minutes, if they would leave me there; and I think that Mrs Evans told her husband to come indoors, leaving me to myself. At any rate they went indoors, and then the cool air, blowing on me from the sea, refreshed me, so that I stood up.

I could think of nothing except the words: "I am a murderer." A wild wish came to me to run to the cliffs by Black Pool to see whether the bodies lay on the grass in the place where I had seen them (full of life) only a few hours before. Anything was better than that uncertainty. In one moment a hope would surge up in me that the men would not be dead; but perhaps only gagged and bound: so that I could free them. In the next there would be a feeling of despair, that the men lay there, dead through my fault, killed by Marah's orders, and flung among the gorse for the crows and gulls. I got out of the Rectory garden into the road; and in the road I felt strong enough to run; and then a frenzy took hold of me, so that I ran like one possessed. It is not very far to Black Pool; but I think I ran the whole way. I didn't feel out of breath when I got there, though I had gone at top speed; a spirit had been in me, such as one only feels at rare times. Afterwards, when I saw a sea-fight, I saw that just such a spirit filled the sailors, as they loaded and fired the guns.

I pushed my way along the cliffs through the gorse, till I came to the patch where the coast-guards had lain. The grass was trampled and broken, beaten flat in places as though heavy bodies had fallen on it; there were marks of a struggle all over the patch. Some of the near-by gorse twigs were broken from their stems; some one had dropped a small hank of spun-yarn. They had lain there all that night, for the dew was thick upon them. What puzzled me at first was the fact that there were marks from only two pairs of boots, both of the regulation pattern. The men who struggled with the coastguards must have worn moccasins, or heelless leather slippers, made out of some soft hide.

I felt deeply relieved when I saw no bodies, nor any stain upon the grass. I began to wonder what the night-riders had done with the coastguards; and, as I sat wondering, I heard, really and truly, a noise of the people talking from a little way below me, just beyond the brow of the cliff. That told me at once that there was a cave, even as I had suspected. I craned forward eagerly, as near as I dared creep, to the very rim of the land. I looked down over the edge into the sea, and saw the little blue waves creaming into foam far below me.

I could see nothing but the side of the cliff, with its projecting knobs of rock; no opening of any kind, and yet a voice from just below me (it seemed to come from below a little projecting slab a few feet down): a voice just below me, I say, said, quite clearly, evidently between puffs at a pipe, "I don't know so much about that." Another voice answered; but I could not catch the words. The voice I should have known anywhere; it was Marah's "good-temper voice," as he called it, making a pleasant answer.

"That settles it," I said to myself. "There's a cave, and the coastguards are there, I'll be bound, as prisoners. Now I have to find them and set them free."

Very cautiously I peered over the cliff-face, examining every knob and ledge which might conceal (or lead to) an opening in the rock. No. I could see nothing; the cliff seemed to me to be almost sheer; and though it was low tide, the rocks at the base of the cliffs seemed to conceal no opening. I crept cautiously along the cliff-top, as near to the edge as I dared, till I was some twenty feet from the spot where I had heard the voice. Then I looked down again carefully, searching every handbreadth for a firm foothold or path down the rocks, with an opening at the end, through which a big man could squeeze his body. No. There was nothing. No living human being could get down that cliff-face without a rope from up above; and even If he managed to get down, there seemed to be nothing but the sea for him at the end of his journey. Again I looked carefully right to the foot of the crag. No. There was absolutely nothing; I was off the track somehow.