"W'en I was servin' dinner jes' now," he persisted, "I was as sure as sure there was a chap watchin' me from just about there,"—he turned and indicated the black shape of a palm on the fringe of the shore,—"not doin' anything but jes' settin' there, spyin'!"
The man knocked out his pipe.
"I'm to call you gentlemen at four, sir. If you didn't mind, I think I'll get down to it!"
This little bit of trench slang (which, being interpreted means to retire for the night), uttered in our romantic surroundings, amused me not a little.
"Good night, Carstairs!"
"Good night, sir!"
He plodded up the beach, his feet making no sound on the soft sand, a white, ghostly figure against the dark foliage. Then he was swallowed up in the mystery and silence of the night.
There was no moon, but in compensation such a prodigious display of stars as only the tropics can show, blazing and twinkling in their myriads till one could almost believe the heavens were in motion. On the open shore there was yet a kind of half-light but beyond, where the woods began, the blackness of the night was Stygian.
Carstairs was right. This island was an eerie place. The absolute stillness of the night, marred only by the mournful rhythm of the waves, seemed to accentuate that air of expectancy about it which I had already remarked. I found myself thinking of the island as of a stage set for the performance of some play.
Here, perhaps, I reflected, the Unknown, destined for that nameless grave I had come to seek, had landed, carried ashore, maybe, by his native crew. I tried to picture him, with death in his face, painfully scrawling the message which had so strangely come into my hands. What manner of man was this Unknown? A German officer, a naval officer probably (as the reference to Kiel seemed to indicate). And for whom did he write? For Germans, for a German. Yet there were no Germans, as far as I knew, in the gang that had taken two men's lives to get the message now reposing in my pocket. Black Pablo, Neque, El Cojo.... these were Spanish names.