"Sacred
To the Memory
of
The Drowned.
October 13th, 1876.
'He that is without sin, let him first
cast the stone.'"
Idris laid down the paper, and, after a few more words with the mason, the two went on their way again.
"Mademoiselle Rivière must know something more about those shipwrecked men than that they were Frenchmen merely," observed Idris. "If the verse cited is to have any application at all, it must mean that the drowned men were guilty of—I know not what, but something upon which the world would not look leniently. Hence, perhaps, the absence of their names from the epitaph."
"You think she knows their names?"
"Without doubt. Why should a lady erect a costly memorial over the grave of men of whom she knows nothing? If I may venture a conjecture I should say that she must be related to one of them. 'He that is without sin, let him first cast the stone.' I have often thought that that verse might very well form a part of my father's epitaph."
CHAPTER VI "THE FIRES OF THE ASAS!"
Midnight was chiming from a distant church-tower as Idris and Godfrey stood on the edge of the upland that overlooked the valley of Ravensdale.
They had left Wave Crest at eleven o'clock, and following a circuitous route, and favoured by the late hour, had succeeded in reaching their destination without attracting notice.