Keeping on towards the Forty Steps, he progressed only slowly. Here and there rough ledges required scaling; the yielding sand also delayed him.
But he was in no hurry. The chances of a shot were as good at one place as another. Hours must elapse ere the Ocean House gong would summon its scattered guests to their grand dinner. He was one of them. Until that time he had no reason for returning to the hotel.
The gentleman thus leisurely strolling, is worthy a word or two by way of description.
That he was only an amateur sportsman, his style of dress plainly proclaimed. More plainly did it bespeak the soldier. A forage cap, that had evidently seen service, half shadowed a face whose deep sun-tan told of that service being done in a tropical clime; while the tint, still fresh and warm, was evidence of recent return. A plain frock-coat, of civilian cut, close buttoned; a pair of dark-blue pantaloons, with well-made boots below them, completed his semi-military costume. Added: that these garments were fitted upon a figure calculated to display them to the utmost advantage.
The face was in keeping with the figure. Not oval, but of that rotund shape, ten times more indicative of daring, as of determination. Handsome, too, surmounted as it was by a profusion of dark hair, and adorned by a well-defined moustache. These advantages had the young man in question, who, despite the appearance of much travel, and some military service, was still under thirty.
Slowly sauntering onward, his boots scranching among the pebbles, he heard but the sound of his own footsteps.
It was only on stopping to await the passage of a gull, and while calculating the carry of his gun, that other sounds arrested his attention.
These were so sweet, that the gull was at once forgotten. It flew past without his attempting to pull trigger—although so close to the muzzle of his gun he might have “murdered” it!
“Nymphs! Naiads! Mermaids! Which of the three? Proserpine upon a rock superintending their aquatic sports! Ye gods and goddesses! what an attractive tableau?”
These words escaped him, as he stood crouching behind a point of rock that abutted far out from the line of the cliff. Beyond it was the cove in which the young ladies were bathing—the negress keeping but careless watch as she sat upon one of the ledges.