g to distract my attention from the house. I
looked at it hard and long and studied the lie of the ground between it
and me, and then I lay down on a couch of soft heather and began to
think.

So far as I could see I had done nothing yet to draw suspicion to this
particular spot, for no one at all seemed to have seen me, but it was
manifest that there would be a hard and close hunt for the mysterious
motor-cyclist on the morrow. I began to half regret that I had cut
that telegraph wire and advertised myself so patently for what I was.
Now it was quite obvious that for some days to come motor-cycling would
be an unhealthy pastime in these islands. Even at night how many ears
would be listening for my "phut-phut-phut," and how many eyes would be
scanning the dark roads? A few judiciously placed and very simple
barricades--a mere bar on two uprights, with a sentry beside each--and
what chance would I have of getting back to that distant bay,
especially as I had just been seen so near it?

"However," I said to myself, "that is looking too far ahead. It was
not my fault I brought this hornet's nest about my ears. Just bad luck
and a clumsy sailor!"

Just then I heard something approaching on the road below me, and in a
minute or two it became unmistakably the sound of a horse and trap. At
one place I could catch a glimpse of this road between the hummocks of
heather, and I raised myself again and looked out. In a moment the
horse and trap appeared and I got a sensation I shall not soon forget.
Not that there seemed to the casual passer-by anything in the least
sensational about this equipage. He would merely have noticed that it
contained, besides the driver, a few articles of luggage and a
gentleman in a flat-looking felt hat and an overcoat--both of them
black. This gentleman was sitting with his back to me (he was in a
small waggonette), but I could scarcely doubt who it was. But only
arriving to-night!

Curiosity and anxiety so devoured me that I ran a little risk. Getting
out of my hollow, I crawled forward on my hands and knees till I could
catch a glimpse of the side road leading to that house; and there I lay
flat on my face and watched.

Down the steep hill the horse proceeded at a walk, and what between my
impatience to make sure, and my consciousness of my own rashness in
quitting even for a moment my sheltered hollow, I passed a few very
uncomfortable minutes. The light by this time was failing