he heard from the other end of the
garden the Frenchman's cry of horror and astonishment. It was echoed by
a howl not to be called human, as the being broke from their hold and
ran along the garden. Three times at least it raced round the whole
island, in a way that was as horrible as the chase of a lunatic, both in
the cries of the pursued and the ropes carried by the pursuers; but was
more horrible still, because it somehow suggested one of the chasing
games of children in a garden. Then, finding them closing in on
every side, the figure sprang upon one of the higher river banks and
disappeared with a splash into the dark and driving river.

"You can do no more, I fear," said Brown in a voice cold with pain.
"He has been washed down to the rocks by now, where he has sent so many
others. He knew the use of a family legend."

"Oh, don't talk in these parables," cried Flambeau impatiently. "Can't
you put it simply in words of one syllable?"

"Yes," answered Brown, with his eye on the hose. "'Both eyes bright,
she's all right; one eye blinks, down she sinks.'"

The fire hissed and shrieked more and more, like a strangled thing, as
it grew narrower and narrower under the flood from the pipe and buckets,
but Father Brown still kept his eye on it as he went on speaking:

"I thought of asking this young lady, if it were morning yet, to look
through that telescope at the river mouth and the river. She might
have seen something to interest her: the sign of the ship, or Mr Walter
Pendragon coming home, and perhaps even the sign of the half-man, for
though he is certainly safe by now, he may very well have waded ashore.
He has been within a shave of another shipwreck; and would never
have escaped it, if the lady hadn't had the sense to suspect the old
Admiral's telegram and come down to watch him. Don't let's talk about
the old Admiral. Don't let's talk about anything. It's enough to say
that whenever this tower, with its pitch and resin-wood, really caught
fire, the spark on the horizon always looked like the twin light to the
coast light-house."

"And that," said Flambeau, "is how the father and brother died. The
wicked uncle of the legends very nearly got his estate after all."

Father Brown did not answer; indeed, he did not speak again, save for
civilities, till they were all safe round a cigar-box in the cabin of
the yacht. He saw that the frustrated fire was extinguished; and then
refused to linger, though he actua