he heard the sound of big sea-boots
climbing heavily over the rock wall, and the voices of their owners as
they passed.

What would they do next, he wondered. Would they imagine him flown, as
the result of their last night's visit? Or would they believe him still
on the island and bound to come out of his hiding-place sooner or later?
Would they give it up and go home? Or would they leave a guard to trap
him when hunger and thirst brought him out?

He lay patiently in the mouth of his tunnel till long after the last
glimmer of light had faded from under the big slabs that covered in his
well. More than once he heard voices, and once they came so close that
he was sure they had come upon his tracks, and he crept some distance
down his tunnel to be out of sight. But the alarm proved a false one,
and the time passed very slowly.

As he lay, he thought of the dead man with the bound hands and feet in
the silent chamber behind him, bound by the forebears of these men, who,
in turn, were seeking him, and would treat him as ruthlessly if they
found him.

He took the lesson to heart, and braced himself to patient endurance,
though, indeed, he began to ask himself gloomily what was the use of it
all. In the end, their venomous persistence must make an end of him. One
man could not fight for ever against a whole community.

And at that he chided himself. Not a whole community! For was not Nance
on his side--hoping and praying and working for him with all her might
and main? And her mother, and Grannie, and the Vicar, and the Doctor,
and the Senechal? He was sure they all knew him far too well to doubt
him. And all these and the Truth must surely prevail.

But the long strain had been sore on him, and in spite of his anxieties
he fell asleep in his hole, and dreamed that the dead man came crawling
down the tunnel, and dragged him back into the chamber, and tied his
hands and feet, and went away, and left him to die there all alone. And
so strong was the impression upon him that, when he woke, he lay
wondering who had loosed his bonds, and could not make out how he had
got back into the mouth of the tunnel.

It was still quite dark. He was stiff with lying in that cramped place.
He was strongly tempted to climb out and see how matters lay. For he
might be able to find out in the dark, whereas daylight would make him
prisoner again.

He wanted eggs, too. Nance's provision had served him well all day, but
if he had to spen