directly,
and several of those with him; but I thought it better to keep a silent
tongue in my head, so they didn't suspect me. To my mind, Myers
murdered the man as a warning to others not to attempt to play a like
trick upon him. From what I happened to hear, I suspect the lugger has
run her cargo, and is by this time off again; for I am certain some of
the people we saw belonged to her, and they wouldn't be likely to stay
in this place after the work which has been done.

Nothing more of importance being elicited from Jack, he was dismissed;
and my uncle arranged with Hanks that all the boats should visit the
shore, and that a strict search should be made to discover the cave;
while we should communicate with the authorities, and state what had
occurred. The mist of the morning having cleared off, a look-out was
kept at the masthead for the lugger, should she be in sight, but not a
sign of her appeared; and as soon as breakfast was over, a large party
of officers and seamen went on shore to hunt for the cave. My uncle,
Stretcher, and I, meantime, went off to the nearest magistrate, to make
our depositions. Mr Gibson, the magistrate, received us very politely,
and expressed his anxiety to sift the affair to the bottom, and to bring
the offenders to justice. He took charge of the things we had found;
and while he entertained us at luncheon, he sent about to make inquiries
on the subject. The man, whose corpse we believed we had seen, was
found to be missing, and we learned that he was well-known to be
connected with the smugglers; but of the cave, and the cargo which we
suspected to have been run, no one could, or rather would, afford any
information. When, however, it was known that murder had been
committed, several persons, who had no objection to assist in simple
smuggling, but had a prejudice against murdering people, came
voluntarily forward to state all they knew and suspected about the
matter. By several, Myers had been seen on shore during the previous
day; and, what is extraordinary, one of the witnesses, an
alehouse-keeper, swore that he had seen him use the very handkerchief we
had found to sweep the crumbs off a table at which he had been eating
bread and cheese, in order to have it clean for writing. He had also
given him a letter to post, which he had forgotten to do. The
handwriting was exactly like that on the card. Another witness said
that he knew Myers by sight perfectly; that later in