oice, so suddenly, that he started in spite of himself.

"Guv'nor!"

Copplestone looked around and saw nothing. Then came a low laugh, as if
the unseen person was enjoying his perplexity.

"Look overhead, guv'nor," said the voice. "Look aloft!"

Copplestone glanced upward, and saw a man's head and face, framed in a
screen of bushes which grew on a shelf of the limestone cliff. The head
was crowned by a much worn fur cap; the face, very brown and seamed and
wrinkled, was ornamented by a short, well-blackened clay pipe, from the
bowl of which a wisp of blue smoke curled upward. And as he grew
accustomed to the gloom he was aware of a pair of shrewd, twinkling eyes,
and a set of very white teeth which gleamed like an animal's.

"Hullo!" said Copplestone. "Come out of that!"

The white teeth showed themselves still more; their owner laughed again.

"You come up, guv'nor," he said. "There's a natural staircase round the
corner. Come up and make yourself at home. I've a nice little parlour
here, and a matter of refreshment in it, too."

"Not till you show yourself," answered Copplestone. "I want to see what
I'm dealing with. Come out, now!"

The unseen laughed again, moved away from his screen, and presently
showed himself on the edge of the shelf of rock. And Copplestone found
himself staring at a queer figure of a man--an under-sized,
quaint-looking fellow, clad in dirty velveteens, a once red waistcoat,
and leather breeches and gaiters, a sort of compound between a poacher, a
game-keeper, and an ostler. But quainter than figure or garments was the
man's face--a gnarled, weather-beaten, sea-and-wind stained face, which,
in Copplestone's opinion, was honest enough and not without abundant
traces of a sense of humour.

Copplestone at once trusted that face. He swung himself up by the nooks
and crannies of the rock, and joined the man on his ledge.

"Well?" he said. "You're the chap who sent me that letter? Why?"

"Come this way, guv'nor," replied the brown-faced one. "Well talk more
comfortable, like, in my parlour. Here you are!"

He led Copplestone along the ridge behind the bushes, and presently
revealed a cave in the face of the overhanging limestone, mostly natural,
but partly due to artifice, wherein were rude seats, covered over with
old sacking, a box or two which evidently served for pantry and larder,
and a shelf on which stood a wicker-covered bottle in company with a row
of bottles of ale.

The lor