I dropped the little flannel-encased package at his feet and swung round. I heard the cripple grunt with excitement as he stooped; I could picture to myself the eagerness with which he snatched up the message. A moment's silence;—then he bade me face him again.
"I think you acted wisely," he said with his slow smile. "Bah! You hadn't a dog's chance. See....!"
He blew three short blasts on a silver whistle he drew from his waistcoat pocket. Immediately a little cloud of men broke out from the cover of the trees at his back.
There were, perhaps, half-a-dozen of them. They were a villainous-looking lot with the exception of a fresh-faced, clean-cut young man whose pink-and-white complexion and fair hair were in striking contrast with the swarthy features and stubbly chins of his companions. I knew him again for the man at the graveside. Another I particularly noticed was a squat, obese fellow with a patch over one eye, the other dull and malevolent. On his yellow jaundiced face a mass of blue-black stubble extended from the cheek-bones down to the loose folds of his double chin, while a twisted and flattened nose, which looked as though a heavy hand had tweaked it, lent a crowning touch of distortion to a face which was, I think, the vilest I have ever seen. From Adams's description I recognised Black Pablo.
Grundt halted them with an imperious gesture.
"Herr Major," he remarked sleekly, "I need not detain you further. A word of advice to you, however, the counsel of a friend. Now that you will have the leisure to devote yourself to that Government survey work on which, of course, you came to Cock Island, I would suggest that you confine your activities to the shores of.... let me see, what was the name?.... ah yes, of Horseshoe Bay. The interior of this delightful island, so they tell me, is most unhealthy and I should be desolated were any accident to befall you."
He paused and meditatively fingered his heavy chin.
"Noch eins! If you should be tempted by some slight feeling of irritation at anything I have said or done to contemplate reprisals or anything calculated to interfere with the.... er, research work of myself and my companions, let me warn you that I have the means of very quickly bringing you...."—he stopped and added significantly,—"and your friend to your senses! Kinder!"
His voice rang triumphantly as he turned to his companions.
"Ich hab's!"