t
think of this. It never even occurred to me that he would defend
himself. Still, the thought of that knife was sweet to me as I
crouched there beneath the shadow of the bulwarks. Should I go, or
not? I paused for a moment, undecided; then rose slowly erect.

As I did so Mrs. Luttrell turned for an instant and saw me.

As I stood there, bareheaded, with the moonlight shining full upon my
white shirt-sleeves, I must have seemed a very ghost; for a look of
abject terror swept across her face; her voice broke off and both her
hands were flung up for mercy--

"Oh, God! Look! look!"

As I rushed forward he turned, and then, with the spring of a wild
cat, was upon me. Even as he leapt, my foot slipped upon the greasy
deck; I staggered backward one step--two steps--and then fell with a
crash down the unguarded forecastle ladder.

CHAPTER X.

TELLS IN WHAT MANNER I LEARNT THE SECRET OF THE GREAT KEY.

As my senses came gradually back I could distinguish a narrow, dingy
cabin, dimly lit by one flickering oil-lamp which swung from a rafter
above. Its faint ray just revealed the furniture of the room, which
consisted of a seaman's chest standing in the middle, and two gaunt
stools. On one of these I was seated, propped against the cabin
wall, or rather partition, and as I attempted to move I learnt that I
was bound hand and foot.

On the other stool opposite me and beside the chest, sat Simon
Colliver, silently eyeing me. The lamplight as it flared and
wavered cast grotesque and dancing shadows of the man upon the wall
behind, made of his matted hair black eaves under which his eyes
gleamed red as fire, and glinted lastly upon something bright lying
on the chest before him.

For a minute or so after my eyes first opened no word was said.
Still dizzy with my fall, I stared for a moment at the man, then at
the chest, and saw that the bright objects gleaming there were my
grandfather's key and my watch-chain, at the end of which hung the
Golden Clasp. But now the clasp was fitted to its fellow and the
whole buckle lay united upon the board.

Though the bonds around my arms, wrists, and ankles caused me
intolerable pain, yet my first feeling was rather of abject
humiliation. To be caught thus easily, to be lying here like any
rat in a gin! this was the agonising thought. Nor was this all.
There on the chest lay the Golden Clasp united at last--the work
completed which was begun with that unholy massacr