could see, was the
current of air that found its way in through the door from below, and
passed up through that above, and what could come in through the
loop-hole seawards. Doubtless in warmer weather both the doors stood
open, but were now closed more for warmth than for any other purpose,
although he had noticed that the lower one had been bolted and locked
after he had been first captured.

As he lay down he wondered how it was all going to end. His position was
at once perilous and uncertain. He had, so far, escaped better than he
could have expected, for from the looks the Frenchmen had given him, he
had no doubt what his fate would have been had not the man he had been
chasing spoken in his favour. His life therefore seemed for the present
safe, but the future was very dark. The poacher had spoken as if he was
not likely to return for some years. They surely could not intend to
keep him on board ship all that time. Could they mean to put him upon
some vessel sailing abroad? What a way Frank and his aunt would be in!
They would learn that he had started for home early in the afternoon,
and it would be absolutely certain that he could not have strayed from
the road nor met with any accident coming along the valley. It would
certainly be awkward his being missed on the same day Faulkner had been
shot, especially as, according to the time he had started for home, he
would have come along the road somewhere about the time the magistrate
was shot.

It was a horrible thought that suspicion might fall upon him. Those who
knew him would be sure that he could have had nothing whatever to do
with the murder; still, the more he thought of it the more he felt that
suspicions were certain to rise, and that he would find it extremely
difficult to explain matters on his return. The memory of his quarrel
with the magistrate was fresh in everybody's mind, and even his friends
might well consider it singular that his words to Faulkner should so
soon have been carried into effect. It is true that Joe Markham would be
missing too, and that the man's own acquaintances would have no great
difficulty in guessing that he had carried out his threats against
Faulkner, but they would certainly not communicate their opinion to the
constables, and the latter might not think of the man in connection with
the murder, nor notice that he was no longer to be seen about the town.

Even were he himself free to leave the cave now and return to Weym