Part 29 (2/2)

He made some sort of motion with his hands and Peter, whose eyes had all this time been open, said:

”I'll buy a watch as like that as a pea to a pea. First thing I will, as soon as I handle my share.”

Cullen Mayle laughed, but he was the only one of that company that did. The rest rather shrank from him as from something devilish, at which, however, he only laughed the louder, being as it seemed flattered by their fear.

The next day the six men started up the river in a long-boat which they borrowed of Leadstone, and sailed all that day until evening when the tide began to fall.

Thereupon Cullen, who held the tiller, steered the boat out of the channel of the river and over the mudbanks, which at high tide were covered to the depth of some feet.

Here all was forest: the great tree-trunks, entwined with all manner of creeping plants, stood up from the smooth oily water, and the roof of branches over head made it already night.

”I have lost my way,” said Cullen. ”It will not be safe to try to regain the channel until the tide rises. It falls very quickly here, Leadstone tells me, and we should get stuck upon some mudbank. Let us look for a pool where we may lie until the tide rises in the morning.”

Accordingly they took their oars and pulled in and out amongst the trees, while Cullen Mayle sounded with the boathook for a greater depth of water. The tide fell rapidly; bushes of undergrowth sc.r.a.ped the boat's side, and then Mayle's boathook went down and touched no bottom.

”This will do,” said he.

It was nine o'clock by his watch at this time, and the crew without any fire or light made their supper in the boat as best they could.

Meanwhile the tide still sank; banks of mud rose out of the black water; the forest stirred, and was filled with a horrible rustling sound, of fish flapping and crabs crawling and scuttering in the slime; and on the pool on which the boat lay every now and then a ripple would cross the water as though a faint wind blew, and a broad black snout would show, and a queer lugubrious cough echo out amongst the tree-trunks.

”Crocodiles, Peter,” said Cullen gaily, and he clapped Tortue on the shoulder. ”It would not be prudent to take a bath in the pool. Hand the lantern over, Glen!” and when he had the lantern in his hand he looked at his watch.

”Five minutes to ten,” said he. ”Well, it is not so long to wait.”

”Four hours,” grumbled Tortue, who was thinking of the tide.

”No, only five minutes, my friend,” Cullen corrected him, softly; and sure enough in five minutes Peter stretched himself and complained that he was sleepy.

Cullen laughed with a gentle enjoyment and whistled a tune between his teeth. But the others waited in a sort of paralysis of horror and amazement. Even these hardened men were struck with a cold fear. The suggestions of the place, too, had their effect. Above them was a black roof of leaves, the close air was foul with the odour of things decaying and things decayed, and everywhere about them was perpetually heard the crawling and pattering of the obscene things which lived in the mud.

Peter Tortue stirred in his sleep, and Cullen held up the face of his watch in the light of the lantern so that all in the boat might see.

It was half-past ten. Peter lifted his leg over the side and let it fall with a splash in the water. It dangled there for about five minutes, and then the man uttered a loud scream and clutched at the thwart, but the next instant he was dragged over the boat's side.

Roper told me this story, and the horror of it lived again upon his face as he spoke.

”Well,” said I, ”the father took his revenge. He stabbed Cullen Mayle to the heart as he lay in bed. There is one thing more I would like to know. Can you remember the paper with the directions of the spot where the cross was buried?”

”Yes,” said he; ”am I likely to forget it?”

”Could you write them out again, word for word and line for line, as they were written?”

”Yes,” said he.

I called for a sheet of paper and a pen and ink, and set them before Roper, and he wrote the directions laboriously, and handed the paper back to me. There were only two lines with which I was concerned, and they ran in this order:

”The S aisle of St. Helen's Church. Three chains east by the compa.s.s of the east window.”

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