Part 37 (2/2)

”That's a grand idea! It's a wonder I didn't think of it before!”

The new idea made the squire walk up and down the library rapidly. He was a great schemer and could evolve a whole transaction, no matter how intricate, much more rapidly than most men.

”I'll do it!” he said, to himself. ”I'll offer her a good price for the cottage and the land, and when the papers are drawn up for her signature, I'll take good care that all the other land is included in the plot mentioned. I can make the papers so confusing that she won't know the difference, and she'll sign them without knowing their real contents.

Glorious!”

Then came a knock on the door.

”Dinner is ready, sir,” said the housekeeper.

”Very well; I will be there in a few minutes,” he returned.

Then he gazed out of the window thoughtfully.

”But what if those papers should turn up? I must watch out for them, and get the land in my name before that occurs--if it ever does occur. What a fool I was to trust them in the mails to have them certified to by that old woman in New York!”

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON THE ISLAND.

Meanwhile, what of poor Ralph? Was it true that he had been dashed to his death over the high cliff?

Happily, it was not true. Yet, for a long while after he was pushed over, the boy knew nothing of what had happened.

He went down and down, clutching vainly at rocks and bushes as he pa.s.sed.

Then his head struck a stone and he was knocked senseless.

How long he remained in this state he did not know. When he came to all was dark around him and silent.

Putting his hand to his face he found it covered with blood. There was a large bruise on his left temple, and his head ached as it never had before.

”Where am I?” was his first thought. ”What has hap---- Oh!”

With something akin to a shock he remembered the truth--how he had stood on the edge of the cliff, and how Martin and Toglet had b.u.mped up against him and shoved him over.

”I believe they did it on purpose,” he thought. ”The villains! What was their object?”

By the darkness Ralph knew it was night, but what time of night he could not tell. Luckily, he had not worn his new watch. The old one was battered, and had stopped.

Presently the bruised and bewildered boy was able to take note of his surroundings, and then he shuddered to think how narrowly he had escaped death.

He had caught in a small tree which grew half way down the side of the cliff, and his head struck on a stone resting between two of the limbs of the tree. Below him was a dark s.p.a.ce many feet in depth, above him was a projecting wall of the cliff which hid the top from view.

What to do he did not know. He wished to get either to the top or the bottom of the wall as soon as possible, but he did not dare make the effort in his feeble condition and without the aid of daylight.

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