TEN minutes later, Joe Pullen, who stood on the beach watching the Anny’s red lantern swing to and fro in the sharp breeze, was startled by the sudden appearance of Hal at his elbow. The boy’s face showed livid in the faint light, and his eyes seemed to have turned dead and dull like those of a corpse. When he spoke, his voice was strangely high and uncontrolled.

“Where’s Blueneck?” he said nervously, clutching the other man’s arm.

Joe jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where a little group of men could just be distinguished in the darkness.

Hal gasped with relief and turned to go to them, still keeping his hold on Joe’s arm.

The elder man suffered himself to be dragged after the boy without a murmur. He saw that something had happened but, until Hal volunteered the information, he was not the one to enquire for it.

Hal pushed unceremoniously through the little crowd, still pulling Joe behind him.

“Master Blueneck, will ye come up to the Ship at once?” he said, tapping the Spanish sailor on the shoulder and speaking in a whisper. Something in his tone caused the man to back away from his fellows, and step aside with the boy, and after a few muttered words of conversation the three set off up the lane at a brisk run.

A few seconds later they turned into the Ship yard; the door was still open, and a bright light shone from within the kitchen while all around was dark and very silent.

Running all round the paved yard, which was long and very narrow, was a wider one of beaten earth, and, as the three men turned into the gate, they could just make out the form of a tall woman standing well on their left. She was digging.

Old Gilbot met them in the doorway; he was very excited but quite sober.

On seeing Blueneck, he seized him by the arm and dragged him into the room.

Joe and Hal followed slowly.

Inside the kitchen everything seemed dead and quiet; the atmosphere was cold and damp and smelt of stale rum; the fire had died down to a few smouldering embers, and the steady ticking of the clock was the only sound.

Sue crouched in a corner shivering, her eyes wild with horror, and her teeth chattering. The two long tables had been dragged together, and on this rough bier Dick and Anny lay side by side, the knife between them.

There had not been time to wash the tables even, had any one desired to do so, and the two lay among the dregs and sloppings of the night’s drinking.

Blueneck walked across the kitchen and stood looking down at the bodies without uncovering.

Gilbot followed nervously.

“What are you going to do?” he whispered anxiously.

The sailor said nothing for a moment or two but continued to stare down at the limp, blood-stained figure whose white fingers held the thin red knife.

Gilbot stood trembling behind him, a picture of a wild crowd of captainless seamen sacking his inn rising up in his mind.

A strange light began to break over the Spanish sailor’s face, and he stroked his ill-shaven chin thoughtfully.

“Do?” he said slowly.

Gilbot swallowed painfully, his fat, podgy knees shaking under him and his little reddened eyes shifting uneasily.

“He killed hisself,” he muttered.

Blueneck bent over the table for a second and with his finger and thumb lifted one of the dark eyelids. He appeared satisfied, and straightening his back looked at the two critically.

“I knew it wasn’t no usual affair with him,” he said almost complacently. Then he turned to Gilbot. “She was a pretty wench,” he said, nodding at the little, white, still smiling face on the table.

Gilbot did not speak, and the man went on: “I never thought he’d do for himself, though,” he muttered, “but it’s his stroke right enough, see”—he dragged the lace ruffles from the small gushing wound, “right over the collar-bone and down to the neck—he was a wonder with that knife of his; there wasn’t another man in the country who could try that stroke on himself and hit so clean.”

Gilbot nodded.

“Ay, he was a wonderful little fellow,” he said, “though I never took much notice of him. But what are you going to do, sir?”

Blueneck faced the three men steadily, a smile breaking out on his lips.

“Put to sea!” he said deliberately. “The men are a mangy lot, God knows, but if they’d sail under him they’ll sail under me, and be glad of the change.”

He paused, and Gilbot heaved a sigh of relief, and Blueneck, seeing that his decision was approved of, added: “And if ever I come near this accursed, God-forsaken island again the devil scuttle my brig and carry off my canvas,” and so saying he turned on his heel and strode to the door. “Good-night, good people,” he said, turning on the threshold.

Hal stepped forward and took the little knife from out the fingers that were still warm.

“Will you take this?” he said, holding it out to the sailor. “It served him well and may you.”

Blueneck drew back.

“Nay!” he said hastily, “I’ll have none of it, and, mark my words, lad, you put it down; the thing is evil. The man there was harmless enough without it, but together, by God, they were devils. Put it down. Fare you well, my masters,” he added, and went out.

They heard his footsteps die away down the road before any one spoke; then Gilbot wiped his beaded forehead and turned to the two friends.

“You must get them out of here; get them buried,” he said jerkily, pointing to the table. “Sink them in the mud,” he added, an idea coming to him.

Hal sprang suddenly forward, a light in his dulled eyes and his mouth half open—but his words died on his lips, for at that moment Nan Swayle, spade in hand, appeared in the open doorway.

“It is done,” she said, her big booming voice sounding strangely hollow in the silent room. “Susan, are you ready? Come help me.”

The frightened girl crept out of her corner and went toward the table; the old woman followed.

Gilbot put his hand on her arm.

“What are you doing, woman?” he said.

“Burying my gran’daughter,” replied Nan laconically.

“Not in my land,” said the old man quickly. “I’ll have no graves in my land.”

Mother Swayle turned and looked at him steadily.

“The lass shall be buried in good Island earth, near the only home she ever had,” she said determinedly, “and the grave is dug, and, thy land or no, Master Gilbot, there she shall lie.”

The man hesitated for a moment, but little by little his wavering eyes dropped before Nan’s bright ones, and shrugging his shoulders he drew back to let her pass.

Hal, who had stood motionless watching them, now stepped forward.

“I—I’ll carry her for you, Mother,” he said without looking up.

Nan stared contemptuously at him for a moment, her bright eyes growing suddenly hard.

“Had you carried her off ere now all had been well,” she said abruptly.

The boy winced, and something like a sob escaped him, but he turned and faced the old woman dry-eyed.

“May I take her?” he said again.

Nan made a gesture of impatience.

“Ay, take her, take her, boy, take her,” she said bitterly. “None of your carelessness can hurt her now.”

Joe, who had been watching the whole proceedings, now came forward and caught the old woman’s sleeve, and drew her away, then whispered:

“The lad is wonderful over-wrought, witch; leave taunting him.”

Nan looked at him fiercely, but she drew back, and the boy, stepping past her, picked up the light cold form of his love and, holding her in his arms, her blood-stained corsage pressed against his breast and her pretty head with its long black plaits lolling heavily on his shoulder, carried her quickly out of the room.

Sue began to cry softly, and Nan stood leaning on her spade and looking down into the fast whitening embers in the open grate.

In two or three minutes Hal came back; he was very pale and there was blood upon his hands and clothes. “I have left her to you, Mother,” he said rather unsteadily as he stood in the doorway looking across at the old woman.

Nan turned from the fire without a word, and beckoning to Sue, who followed her, still weeping, she went out and shut the door behind her.

Gilbot looked after her.

“’Tis a wonderful strange woman she is,” he said thoughtfully, “talking about granddaughters and such like, and her never having had a child.”

He shook his head and then turned to the table. “We must get him out of here,” he said, suddenly growing nervous again, as he looked at the dead Spaniard.

“Here, Hal, Joe, take him down to the mud. It will do the old place no good if folk get to know he’s lying here,” and he began to drag the limp mass on to the floor.

Joe looked up at the clock.

“Half-past twelve,” he said thoughtfully. “’Twill be full dawn at five.”

Then he turned to Hal.

“In four hours I’ll risk going out with him, lad,” he said. “Will you wait till then?”

Hal nodded.

Gilbot looked up.

“I had forgot,” he said. “I had forgot; it is a long time since I went out on the mud—ah, well! Hal, bring me some rum.”

The sky was a pale gray in which two or three late stars still shone faintly, and there was a sharp twang of frost in the air, when two men, carrying the body of a third between them, four great weights slung over their shoulders, stumbled out of the old Ship’s kitchen, leaving behind them a girl asleep by the empty grate and an old man lying drunk upstairs.

As they came out into the yard they both turned instinctively to a patch of newly disturbed earth on their right from the side of which rose a dark figure, who glided off into the grayness beyond.

The shorter of the two men spoke gruffly.

“The witch was fond enough of the lass,” he said. “I wonder she didn’t do more to save her.”

The other answered him bitterly:

“It wasn’t her place, Joe. ’Twas mine. And I did naught. God knows I—I thought she loved him,” he added, giving the slim little figure whose shoulders he held a violent shake.

Pullen shook his head, and a drop of pure sentiment crept into his bright blue eyes.

“’Tis a wonderful pity,” he said slowly, “a wonderful pity—poor little lass—and him, too—he must have loved her, or he’d never have killed hisself.”

The memory of Nan’s upstretched arm and fierce blow came clearly to Hal, and he opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it, and they trudged on in silence.

The mud looked very black, cold, and sinister when they at last reached the shore; the tide was well out, and the sea seemed a full mile the other side of the soft greenish belt.

Joe dropped the Spaniard’s feet and stood staring in front of him for a moment; then he stooped down and lifted them again.

“It’s a bit farther up,” he said shortly, and they went on.

Presently he stopped again.

“Here we are,” he remarked, as he sat down on the shingle, and, taking off his back a pair of boards specially cut for the purpose, he proceeded to tie them on to his feet.

Hal did the like, and the two set out over the black, evil-smelling ooze.

The boards prevented them from sinking more than a few inches at each step, but it was not easy going, for the limp body of the Spaniard, although not heavy, was yet not light.

The two slipped often, sometimes almost falling.

After some fifteen minutes of this Joe paused.

“This’ll do,” he said, nodding to a circular patch of smooth grayish mud which lay just in front of them.

Hal looked at it and at the white face of the Spaniard; then he shuddered.

“It’s horrible,” he said.

Joe grunted.

“Give us them weights, lad,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

Hal slung them over.

Hastily, and with perfect calmness, Joe tied them to the Spaniard’s feet. He had to bend nearly double to do this, as to kneel with the boards on was impossible, and he straightened his back with some relief on finishing.

“That’s enough; now in with him,” he said briskly, wiping his hands on his jersey. Then his eyes fell on the silver buttons on the black velvet coat and the rings on the white hands, and he pulled out his knife.

“’Twould be a pity to leave him these,” he said practically, bending down again.

“Let be, Joe Pullen,” Hal’s voice rang out clear over the wind-swept flats. “We’ll have naught of his. Let the devil keep his own.” He drew from his belt the thin two-edged knife, now brown and clotted with dry blood, round which was still the flower-ring, and threw it into the centre of the gray circle. It sank almost immediately.

Pullen watched him.

“Ay, maybe the knife, but not the buttons; there’s no evil in them.”

Hal shook his head.

“Nay,” he said determinedly, “evil in everything he touched, everything he owned—sink it deep, Joe, sink it deep.”

Pullen sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe you’re right, lad,” he said, “maybe you’re right,” and added cheerfully, “and I don’t know who’d buy them, anyway. Come, then, heave him in.”

Hal bent down and together they lifted the once so gallant little figure, still clad in all its bravery, and dropped it gently into the gray patch; the weights hit the mud first and sank quickly out of sight, dragging the silk-stockinged feet with them; the ooze clicked and chuckled to itself as it sucked down its prey. Farther and farther in sank the body of the great little captain, who twelve hours before was so gay, so sure of himself, so debonair.

The dawn breeze came stealing across the sea, and a sea-gull screamed lazily near by, while a faint yellow light began to glow over the mainland the other side of the bay. Now the mud had reached the Spaniard’s breast; his head, still bound with his famous black kerchief, had fallen forward and his limp arms lay loosely on the soft slime.

Joe looked at him critically.

“I wonder now has he struck the hard?” he said thoughtfully, and leaning forward he put his foot on the black-coated shoulder and pushed vigorously. The mud sucked noisily and the body vanished rapidly. Now only the head and one arm were visible. Now the head was gone. The dark eyes, the terrible crooked smile, the white flashing teeth—the cold silent mud had them all. Now only a hand was left; it lay for a second on the gray background, white and shapely, and then it, too, vanished, leaving the gray circle as quiet and untroubled as before.

Joe turned away.

“Come,” he said slowly, “it’s all over now.”

Hal looked up.

“Ay,” he said, and his voice was heavy and toneless. “It is all over—Joe, all over in one night. Come.”

And they toiled, slipped, and struggled back to their homes again.

The yellow light over the mainland grew brighter and brighter, turned to gold, and then to crimson, and the sun rose once more over an Island as quiet and peaceful as if the Spaniard and his love had never been.