"Can you not?"
"No. She is apparently on legitimate business."
"I thought that her Majesty could search any vessel, legitimate or illegitimate."
Again Mr. Kyne looked slightly crestfallen. "I boarded her with my men the last time she was here, and nothing came of it. She happened by ill-luck to be really empty, or we were not clever enough to unearth the fox."
The reminiscence was not agreeable to Mr. Kyne. The empty vessel had staggered him professionally; the reception he met with insulted him personally. Until the search was over, the captain, a round, broad Dutchman, had been civil, affording every facility to the revenue officers; but the instant the work was done, he ordered them out of the ship in his bad English, and promised a different reception if they ever came on it again. That was not all. The mate, another Dutchman, was handling a loaded pistol the whole time on full cock, and staring at the superintendent in a very strange manner. Altogether the remembrance was unpleasant.
The tide was coming up, and they had to quit the strip of beach while the road was open. Mr. Kyne wished them good morning and departed on his own way. Robert Hunter turned towards the plateau again, which surprised Miss Thornycroft. "Just for a minute or two," he urged.
They ascended it, and stood on the brow as before, Robert Hunter in deep thought. His face, now turned to the sea, now to the land, wore a business-like expression.
"We are now standing exactly above the middle of the rocks on the Half-moon beach below," he remarked presently, "just where they had a hollow sound."
"Yes," she replied.
"And the Red Court, as you see, lies off in a straight line. It is a good thing your father lives there, Mary Anne."