Matt had not turned up that morning. Instead of looking after her, Brinkley took another stroll towards the vicinity of the Devil’s Cauldron. He had not gone far before he discovered that he was watched again. The figure of William Jones followed in the distance, but keeping him well in view.
It was certainly curious.
He walked over to the cliffs and looked down at the scene of yesterday’s bathing adventure. A strong wind was blowing, and the waves were surging up the rocks with deafening roar and foamy spume. The place looked very ugly, particularly near the Cauldron. All the passage was churned to milky white, and the sound from beneath was, to quote an old simile, like the roar of innumerable chariots.
He glanced over his shoulder, and saw the head of William Jones eagerly watching, the body being hidden behind an intervening rock.
“Strange!” he reflected. “My predatory friend can’t keep his treasure, if he possesses any, down in that watery gulf. Yet whenever I come near it his manner tells me that I am ‘warm,’ as they say in the game of hide and seek.”
To test the matter a little further he set off on a brisk walk along the cliffs, leaving the Cauldron behind. He found, as he had suspected, that he was no longer followed. Returning as he came, and resuming his old position, he saw William Jones immediately re-appear.
That day he discovered no clue to the mystery, nor the next, nor the next again, though on each day he went through a similar performance. Strange to say, Matt had not put in an appearance, and for reasons of his own he had thought it better not to seek her.
On the morning of the third day—a dark chilly morning after a night of rain—Tim put his head into the caravan, where his master was seated at his easel, and grinned delightedly.
“Mr. Charles! She’s come, sor!”
“Who the deuce has come?” cried Brinkley.