"He burned it himself this evening. There's nothing else?"
"Nothing whatever, sir."
"That's all right, then. We have nothing to do but … see that he's decently buried and get away as soon as we can. There's no time to lose. It's after four, now, and as soon as it's daylight——You must have a boat somewhere about?"
"Yes, sir. Mr. Rutton 'ad me 'ire a little power launch before 'e came down. It's down by the bayside, 'alf a mile aw'y."
"Very well. The wind is dying down and by sunrise the bay will be safe to cross—if it isn't now. These shallow waters smoothe out very quickly. We'll—"
He cut his words short and got up abruptly with a sharp exclamation:
"What's that?"
Doggott, too, had heard and been startled. "It sounded like a gun-shot, sir, and a man shouting," he said, moving toward the door.
But Amber anticipated him there.
As he stepped out into the bitter-cold air of early morning, he received an impression that a shadow in the hollow had been alarmed by his sudden appearance and had flitted silently and swiftly out upon the beaten eastward path. But of this he could not be sure.
He stood shivering and staring, waiting with attentive senses for a repetition of the sound. The wind had indeed fallen, and the world was very still—a hush that overspread and lay unbroken upon the deep, ceaseless growling of the sea, like oil on water. The moon had set and the darkness was but faintly tempered by the starlight on the snow—or was it the first wan promise of the dawn that seemed to quiver in the formless void between earth and sky?