"When it was over, Mr. Trevethlan put a purse into Ashton's hand, and we went our way. But I thought there must be something wrong in the business, and therefore I chose to consider that Ashton did not give me my fair share of the price. However, it was not a thing to talk over in the high road, and I knew well where to find him. He used to walk along the cliff every evening; and there, just as it was getting dusk, I went to meet him. We had some high words, and as I came towards him he stepped backwards, not recollecting how near he was to the edge, and he went over.
"I was terribly frightened,—nothing, I knew, could go over there and live. I thought I was charged with the murder. I lay down, trembling, and put my head beyond the edge. I fancied I could see him just move. I lurked thereabout, on and off, not knowing what to do, till it came to be quite dark. Then I saw lights at one or two points, and began to think the people were already on the search. But it was not so; and the truth was all in my favour.
"The lights were the country folk's signals to Will Watch's lugger, that was then running in. Luckily for me, as I thought, she took up a berth a good way off the spot where Ashton lay. All the country turned out to run the cargo. And I crept down by myself to the beach, and came to where he had fallen, and there I found him stone-dead. I don't know what it was moved me, but I fancied that if the body were not owned nothing could be done. And, in that thought, I took off the clothes, and buried them in a nook of the cliff, which I could show to this day. For himself, I could see, by the light from the water, he was so much hurt that no one would know him. I should say, that I got the money which had been the cause of our difference. Well, when this was all over, my fears grew worse and worse. I thought it would have been better to have left him alone. At last I went among the throng of folks that were busy running the kegs, and got on board the lugger. She took me over to Holland, and from there I shipped myself for the Spanish Indies, and lived a roving life.
"But I tired of it at length, and had got a wife—my poor Felipa—and a little girl. So I came home. Lived quiet a while, until I was sure that no one knew me by my old name, and that the tale of Ashton's death was nigh forgotten, and then took to the cabin on the hill. The rest you know."
Owen listened to this narrative with wonder and joy, for he saw it would be likely to restore his squire, as he called him, to all his rights.
"But why," said he after a silence, "why then did you not come forward to claim the reward they offered?"
"I did not know of any such," Gabriel answered. "If I had, I should not have heeded it till they drove me from my cottage. It matters not now. Do what you will with the tale."
The young peasant gazed on the swarthy features which had been bronzed by near a score of year's exposure to a tropical sun, and did not marvel that the sea-faring wanderer had escaped unrecognised. He was in communication with an attorney of the town for the purposes of his own defence, and to him, with Gabriel's permission, he told the strange tale. Its importance was at once perceived and acknowledged. And the lawyer in question immediately despatched the news to Griffith by the messenger whose arrival had excited the curiosity described in the opening of this chapter. Thus Michael Sinson's artifices again recoiled upon himself; by his attempted perversion of Gabriel Denis, he cut the ground from under his own feet. He acquired some inkling of what had transpired, and hurried back to London; more vexed than before at his quarrel with Everope, of whose melancholy end he had as yet received no information.
Denis, or Wyley, was nothing loth to repeat his story. Griffith, having the knowledge which Owen was too young to possess, was able to confirm him on several points. The narrative was verified in every possible manner, and a copy transmitted to Winter, while the steward returned to Trevethlan, to confirm it still further, by disinterring the buried clothes.
In the flush of his exultation, he did not attempt to conceal the purpose of his journey, and the greater part of the villagers turned out spontaneously to assist in the quest which he undertook without loss of time. Gabriel had described with great exactitude the spot to be searched, for he remembered it very well. And indeed there were many people still living who could point out the place where the body was found. Near at hand, a long narrow rift ran into the face of the precipice, and at its extreme end, where the billows of every winter increased the depth of superincumbent sand, Wyley stated he had deposited the garments which would identify the wearer. The cleft was too narrow for more than one man to dig at a time, and the excitement of the crowd behind him increased with every stroke of his spade. The smuggler appeared to have told the truth. A quantity of half-destroyed garments were discovered, and among them a pocket-book containing a pencil-case and a ring. The clothes were worthless for any object; but of these last-mentioned articles Griffith took possession, and forwarded them to London, in order that they might be submitted to Mr. Ashton's friends for recognition.