Part 37 (1/2)

He slipped off his coat and left it hanging out of the cleft as a landmark, and lowered himself silently from rock to rock, till he stood among the rank gra.s.ses below.

Food first--so, after patient listening for smallest sound or sign of a watch, he crept down to the slope where the puffins' nests were, and, wrapping his hand in Nance's napkin, managed to get out a dozen eggs from as many different holes, in spite of the fierce objections of their legitimate owners.

He tied these up carefully in the blood-spotted cloth, and carried them up to his cleft. Then he stole away like a shadow, to find out, if he could, if there was any one else on the rock besides himself and the dead man.

There had been hot disputes on that head in the boats. Those who were there for the first time had even gone the length of casting strongest possible doubts as to whether those who were there the night before had seen or heard anything whatever, and did not hesitate to state their belief that they were all on a fool's errand. The others replied in kind, and when the further question was mooted as to keeping watch all night, the scoffers told the others to keep watch if they chose; for themselves, they were going home to their beds.

”Frightened of ghosts, I s'pose,” growled one.

”No more than yourself, John Drillot. But we've wasted a day on this same fooling, and the man's not here; and for me, I doubt if he's ever been here.”

”And what of the things we found in the shelter?” said Drillot. ”Think they came there of themselves?”

”I don't care how they came there. It's not old cloaks and blankets we came after. Maybe he has been here. I don't know. But he's not here now, and I've had enough of it.”

”B'en! I'm not afraid to stop all night--if anyone'll stop with me”--and if no one had offered he would have been just as well pleased. ”Don't know as I'd care to stop all alone.”

”Frightened of ghosts, maybe,” scoffed the other.

”You stop with me, Tom Guille, and we'll see which is frightenedest of ghosts, you or me.”

But Tom Guille believed in ghosts as devoutly as any old woman in Sark, and he was bound for home, no matter what the rest chose to do.

”There's not a foot of the rock we haven't searched,” said he, ”and the man's not here; so what's the use of waiting all night?”

”Because if he's in hiding it's at night he'll come out.”

”Come out of where?”

”Wherever he's got to.”

”That's Guernsey, most likely. His friends have arranged to lift him off here first chance that came; and it came before we did, and you'll not see him in these parts again, I warrant you.”

”I'll wait with you, John, if you're set on it, though I doubt Tom's right, and the man's gone,” said Peter Vaudin of La Ville. And John Drillot found himself bound to the adventure.

”Do we keep the boat?” asked Vaudin.

”No ... for then one of us must sit in her all night, or she will b.u.mp herself to pieces. You will come back for us in the morning, Philip.”

”I'll come,” said Philip Guille, and presently they stood watching the boats pulling l.u.s.tily homewards, and devoutly wis.h.i.+ng they were in them.

Every foot of the rock, as they knew it, had already been carefully raked over. The possible hiding-places were few. But no one knows better than a Sark man what rocks can do in the way of slits and tunnels and caves, and it was just this possibility that had set John Drillot to his unwonted, and none too welcome, task. The murderer--as he deemed Gard--might have found some place unknown to any of them, and might be lying quietly waiting for them to go. If that was so, he must come out sooner or later, and the chances were that he would steal out in the night.

So the two watchers prowled desultorily about the rock, poking again into every place that suggested possible concealment for anything larger than a puffin. There might be openings in the rifted bas.e.m.e.nt rocks which only the full ebb would discover, and these might lead up into chambers where a man could lie high and dry till the tide allowed him out again. And so they hung precariously over the waves and poked and peered, and found nothing.

They had clambered over the great wall more than once before Vaudin said: ”G'zamin, John, I wonder if there's any holes here big enough to take a man?”

”He'd have to be a little one, and this Gard's not that,” and they stood looking at the wall. ”'Sides, them rocks lie on the rock itself, and there's no depth to them.”