“What d’ye mean, master?” grunted William, puzzled and a little alarmed by this style of address.
“A nice wreck, now, would admirably suit your tastes? A well-laden Indiaman, smashing up on the reef-yonder, would lend sunshine to your existence, and deepen your faith in a paternal Providence? Eh, Mr. Jones?”
“I don’t know nowt about no wrecks,” was the reply. “They’re no consarn o’ mine.”
“Ah, but I have heard you lament the good old times, when wrecking was a respectable occupation, and when there were no impertinent coastguards to interfere with respectable followers of the business. By the way, I have often wondered, Mr. Jones, if popular report is true, and if, among these cliffs or the surrounding sand-hills, there is buried treasure, cast up from time to time by the sea, and concealed by energetic persons like yourself?”
William Jones could stand this no longer. Looking as pale as it was possible for so rubicund a person to become, and glancing round him suspiciously, he rose to his feet, “I know nowt o’ that,” he said. “If there is summat, I wish I could find it; but sech things never come the way of honest chaps like me. Good mornin’, master! Take a poor man’s advice, and don’t you go swimming no more near the Devil’s Cauldron!”
So saying, he walked off in the direction of the deserted village. Presently Brinkley rose and followed him, keeping him steadily in view. From time to time William Jones looked round, as if to see whether the other was coming; lingering when Brinkley lingered, hastening his pace when Brinkley hastened his. As an experiment, Brinkley turned and began walking back towards the cliffs. Glancing round over his shoulder, he saw William Jones had also turned, and was walking back.
“Curious!” he reflected. “The innocent one is keeping me in view. I have a good mind to breathe him!”
He struck off from the path, and hastened, running rather than walking, towards the sand-hills. So soon as he was certain that he was followed, he began to run in good earnest. To his delight, William began running too. He plunged among the sandhills, and was soon engaged busily running up and down them, hither and thither. From time to time he caught a glimpse of his pursuer. It was an exciting chase. When he had been engaged in it for half an hour, and was almost breathless himself, he suddenly paused in one of the deep hollows, threw himself down on his back, and lit a cigar. A few minutes afterwards, he heard a sound as of violent puffing and breathing, and the next instant William Jones, panting, gasping, perspiring at every pore, appeared above him.
“How d’ye do, Mr. Jones?” he cried gaily. “Come and have a cigar!”
Instead of replying, William Jones looked completely thunderstruck, and after glaring feebly down and muttering incoherently, disappeared as suddenly as he had come.