Gilbert was silent for a moment, and at length, pointing to the land, he said:
"Look to the flag on Modbury tower yonder. I beg you look at it and tell me if my sight deceiveth me. Is't not flying at the half-mast?"
"Ay, in very sooth, 'tis so," returned young Grenville. "I can see it plainly. Someone is surely dead—Ah, the trees hide it now!"
"Heaven send 'tis not my grandfather!" cried Gilbert. "I cannot believe 'tis he, for I left him hale and well. And yet I can think of none else."
"Mayhap 'tis your uncle Jasper," suggested Roland.
But Gilbert shook his head, remembering Jasper's vigorous strength.
"No," he said; "it cannot be uncle Jasper."
"Then 'tis your cousin Philip, I warrant me," said Grenville. "The lad hath met with some mishap on the hare-brained journey that you told me of. Said you not that he went off on horseback, and that you had not heard news of him for two full days? 'Tis clearly he."
And arguing with himself that night as he lay in the ship's cabin, sleepless and sick at heart, Gilbert came to the conclusion that this was so. He surmised that Philip had been thrown from his horse, or had come into some quarrel with highway vagabonds and had been brought home to Modbury dead. Little did he dream that Philip Oglander was now on board the Pearl on his way to Spain; little did he dream that his grandfather now lay dead in his great room at Modbury Manor; and as little did he dream that now at this same moment he was himself the only Baron Champernoun.