“I swear it,” he said. Then he got up and beckoned to Blueneck to follow him.
“Good-morrow, mistress,” he said, taking off his hat.
Pet stood looking after them.
“I’ll coax her,” the woman called. “I’ll coax her,” and all the way as they went down the beach they could hear her cracked, horrible laughter.
CHAPTER XVIII
“RUM! rum! ru-u-m-m!”
Nan Swayle sat in her miserable little cabin with her knees drawn up to her chin; her cat was perched on a rum keg beside her and there was no light save for the cold gleam of stars coming in from the open door. She sat there, a tall, gaunt figure steadily rocking herself to and fro as though keeping time to some monotonous rhyme. She was talking to herself in a deep, weary voice, and the words she uttered were always the same, “Rum—rum—ru-u-m-m!”
Outside on the marshes everything was very quiet, and she rocked on, undisturbed for a while. Then from the direction of the Stroud she heard the squeak of a frightened gull as it flew up, disturbed from its rest, and then another a little nearer, and again nearer still.
The woman did not cease her rocking; she knew someone was coming over the dykes to see her, but what mattered that?
Suddenly she stopped, however, leaned her head forward to listen, and then sprang from her chair with surprising agility and hurried to the door.