over close to
the bank presently ran upon a sand bar. Its occupant was forced to rise
to his feet in order to shove it off. He stood upright but a moment, but
in that moment, and despite the partial darkness, Landless recognized
the misshapen figure.

"It is the convict, Roach!" he exclaimed.

"Ay," said the Muggletonian, "and an ill-omened night bird he is! May he
be cursed from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head! May there
be no soundness in him! May--What are you about, friend?" he cried,
interrupting himself. "There's no need of two pair of oars. We have
plenty of time."

Landless bent to the second pair of oars. "He came down the creek," he
said in a voice that sounded strained and unnatural.

The other stared at him. "What do you mean?" he demanded.

"Nothing: but let us hasten."

Porringer stared, but fell in with the humor of his companion, and the
shallop, impelled by strong arms, shot into the creek and along its mazy
windings with the swiftness of a bird.

Landless rowed with compressed lips and stony face, a great fear tugging
at his heart. Porringer too was silent. The vapor hung so heavily upon
the plains of marsh level with their heads that they seemed to be
piercing a dense, low cloud. The light was growing stronger, but the
earth still lay like a corpse, livid, dumb, cold and still. There was a
chill stagnant smell in the air.

Arriving at the stake in the bank below the hut, they fastened the boat
to it, and stepping out, moved through the dense mist to where the hut
loomed indistinctly before them, looking in the blank and awful
stillness like a forlorn wreck drifting upon an infinite sea of
soundless foam.

"The door is open," said Landless.

"Ay, I see," answered Porringer. "Does he wish to die before his time of
the fever, that he lets this graveyard mist and stench creep in upon him
in his sleep?"

They spoke in low tones as though they feared to waken the sleeper whom
they had come to waken. When they reached the hut, they knocked upon the
lintel of the door and called Godwyn by name, once, twice, thrice. There
was no answer.

"Come on!" said Landless hoarsely, and entered the hut, followed by the
other. The cold twilight, filtering through the low and narrow doorway,
was powerless to dispel the darkness within. Landless groped his way to
the pallet and stooped down.

"He is not here," he said.

The Muggletonian stumbled over a sheaf of oars, sending them to the
fl