the thin, pebbly
stretches of shore at their feet by thick wood, mostly oak and beech.
That the cove was known to the folk of that neighbourhood it was
impossible to doubt, but I felt sure that any strange craft passing
along the sea in front would never suspect its existence, so carefully
had Nature concealed the entrance on the landward side of the bar. And
there were no signs within the cove itself that any of the shore folk
ever used it. There was not a vestige of a human dwelling-place to be
discovered anywhere along its thickly-wooded banks; no boat lay on its
white beach; no fishing-net was stretched out there to dry in the sun
and wind; the entire stretch was desolate. And I knew that an equal
desolation lay all over the land immediately behind the cove and its
sheltering woods. That was about the loneliest part of a lonely
coast--by that time I had become well acquainted with it. For some
miles, north and south of that exact spot, there were no coast
villages--there was nothing, save an isolated farmstead, set in deep
ravines at wide distances. The only link with busier things lay in the
railway--that, as I also knew, lay about two or two-and-a-half miles
inland; as far as I could recollect the map which lay in my pocket,
but which I did not dare to pull out, there was a small wayside
station on this line, immediately behind the woods through which Miss
Raven and I had unthinkingly wandered to our fate; from it, doubtless,
the Frenchman, Baxter's accomplice, had taken train for Berwick, some
twenty miles northward. Everything considered, Miss Raven and I were
as securely trapped and as much at our captor's mercy as if we had
been immured in a twentieth-century Bastille.

I went back, presently, to the tea-table and dropped into my
deck-chair again. Baxter was still away from us; as far as I could
see, there was no one about. I gave her a look which was intended to
suggest caution, but I spoke in a purposely affected tone of
carelessness.

"I shouldn't wonder if you are right in your suggestion," I said. "In
that case, I think we should have a friend on board in case we need
one."

"But you don't anticipate any need?" she asked quickly.

"I don't," said I. "So don't think I do."

"What do you suppose is going to happen to us?" She asked, glancing
over her shoulder at the open door of the galley into which Baxter had
vanished.

"I think they'll detain us until they're ready to depart, and then
they'll re