The Watchers

he most part of fishermen, who talked always of wrecks upon the western islands and of dead men drowned. But occasionally a different accent and a different anecdote of some other cor

. I paid, therefore, but a scanty attention, until, the talk having slid, as it will, from d

ders dictated in writing by the dead man. He was to be buried by torchlight in the

e would," chi

island, and down past the Abbey pond to the graveyard. Five shillings each we had for carrying him--five shillings c

speaker took up

uld sit in that corner just where you be, Mr. Glen, and tell stories to turn a ma

rs?" asked

that was a queer notion of his about that stick"; and then he

the stick?

as a stick with a sword in't, but the sword was broken. I remember how he loosened the handle once while he was talking just as you and I are now, and he held the stick upside down and the sword fell out on to the ground, just two or three in

another nodded his head to the sentiment. "There was five shillings, you see," he explained, "once

tion--about

his presence. Adam Mayle was the only occupant of the room for me. I could see him sitting on the settle, with a long pipe between his lips when he was not holding a mug there, his mulberry face dimly glowing through the puffs of tobacco, a

, with a nervous twitting laugh, and in his manner he was extremely intimate and confidential. He could hardly finish a sentence without plucking you by the sleeve, and every

take it that I am pretty much in

he stared at me utterly discountenan

ble--"'here's old George Glen, that battered about the world in ships for fifty years, and has come to his moorings in a snug harbo

here have I battered about London, that's wors

th some astonishment, and,

rn. All very well for tarry sailor folk that's never seen nothing better than forecas

a kedge, Mr.

a titter, "and a kedge we'll make it. It's

wise to take no notice of them, but, rising from my seat, I wished him good night. And there t

impossible ocean. The second, however, it was, which caught my attention. It was the picture of a sailor's return. His wife and children danced before him, he was clad in magnificent garments, and to prove the prosperity of his voyage he carried in

of painting picture

crude, and for these he express

guilty of a libel, for he makes th

became

me with wealth untol

he comes home wit

pains to explain to me that the

a landsman laughs; but sailors, you says, says you, 'comes home with watches

I; and Mr. Glen dropped my arm and s

he said, in a f

I an

u know

s much as you do, Mr. Glen, who were quartermast

for. His face turned all of a mottled colour; he banged his fist upon the table and uttered a horrible

true sailor's 'eart "; at which he would have wrung my hand. But I had no hand ready for him; I barely heard his words. Whydah--the Guinea coast--the ship Royal Fortune! The truth came so sudde

now"--I bega

rted into an insinuating grin. But he was standi

years ago," said I, clapping my hand to

never forgotte

aid I, "I have only

he table to me, and I laughed very contentedly. Mr. Glen immediately turned. He had

spirits," said he

. "The motions of inanimate bod

lling copies of the ballad--a ballad to which was added the last confessions of four men hung for piracy at Cape Coast Castle within the flood-marks. It was well over twenty years since that day, but I remembered it now with a startling distinctness. There was a rough woodcut upon the title-page of the ballad representing four men hanging in chains upon four gibbets. I had bought one that afternoon, and my father had taken it from me and thrashed me soundly for reading it. But I had read it! My memory was quickened now to an almost supernatural clearness. I could almost turn over the pages in my mind and read it again. All four men--one of them was named Ashplant, a second Moody--went to the gallows without any sign of penitence. There was a third so gr

aptain Bartholomew Roberts, the famous pirate who was killed in this very encounter. How did George Glen or Adam Mayle or Peter Tortue (for he alone of Gle

Adam's look when George Glen let slip the name of the ship when he first came to Tresco; there was Glen's consternation thi

all Helen would be justified of her confidence in believing that I had been sent to Tresco to some good end. Her face was very present to me that night. There was much in her which I could not understand. There was something, too, to trouble one, there were concealments, it almost seemed there was a trace of effrontery--such as Lieutenant Clutterbuck had spoken of; but to-night I was conscious chiefly that she set her faith in me and my en

already sunk, but the night was clear, and I watched the white door and the white woodwork of the door frame. The door was in the wall on my right; it was about midway between the head and the foot of my bed, and it opened inwards and down towards the foot; so that I should easily see it opening. But suddenly I heard the stair boards creaking.

d any one wish to assure himself I slept? This was a question to be looked into.

. I crept to the head of the stairs which were steep and led directly to the very threshold of the kitch

gazing in a complete abstraction, and biting his thumb, very much puzzled. I crept back to bed and in a little I heard him come shuffling up the stairs. He had been examining that picture to find a reason for my exclamatio