Volume Three—Chapter Two.
The Crushed Juniper.
Notwithstanding the caution with which Captain Ryecroft made his reconnaissance, it was nevertheless observed. And from beginning to end. Before his boat drew near the end of the eyot, above the place where for the second time it had stopped, it came under the eye of a man who chanced to be standing on the cliff by the side of the summer-house.
That he was there by accident, or at all events not looking out for a boat could be told by his behaviour on first sighting this; neither by change of attitude nor glance of eye evincing any interest in it. His reflection is—
“Some fellows after salmon, I suppose. Have been up to that famous catching place by the Ferry, and are on the way home downward—to Rock Weir, no doubt? Ha!”
The ejaculation is drawn from him by seeing the boat come to a stop, and remain stationary in the middle of the stream.
“What’s that for?” he asks himself, now more carefully examining the craft.
It is still full four hundred yards from him, but the moonlight being in his favour he makes it out to be a pair-oared skiff with two men in it.