out a shout that might have been heard far out at sea—so I thought at the time—and at the sound the brown hand vanished and Uncle Joseph started in his corner. And as I shouted I made a dash for the door, not out of any bravery, you may be certain, but from sheer fright. The hand and arm had gone, of course, by the time I got there, and I thought I heard a faint movement outside, amongst the shrubs and undergrowth which obscured the entrance to the tower. But it was gone on the instant, and all was quiet again, and looking through the gap in the planks into which the arm had been thrust I could see nothing—nothing, that is, of our visitor. All the same, I knew he was close by, waiting, watching, and I had a very good notion as to his identity.
“What’s that, Benjamin?” asked Uncle Joseph from his corner. “What’re you doing at the door?”
I glanced towards the pile of cushions and rugs in which Pepita had made her nest. All was motionless there; she was still sound asleep. I went quietly across to Uncle Joseph, who was now sitting up, with wide-awake anxiety shown clearly on his big face.
“You haven’t heard anything, Benjamin?” he asked.
“Heard and seen!” I answered in a whisper, bending down to him. “I saw a man’s hand and arm, thrust through that hole, feeling at the props we’d stuck up against the door, inside. I shouted, and they vanished—I heard a sound of somebody going away, amongst the bushes.”
“A man’s hand!” he exclaimed. “Deary me, Benjamin”
“Listen!” I said, still whispering. “It’s worse than you think. It was a brown man—a brown hand and arm! And I’m certain I know whose—that Hindu chap at Miss Ellingham’s! He came and looked in at the window of the room I was locked up in at the Shooting Star—that night, after dusk. I saw him plainly then—in the lamplight.”
I was watching Uncle Joseph narrowly as I spoke, and I saw that my information hit him hard. His big face grew anxious and his forehead knotted, and the bit of colour he had went altogether.
“That Hindu!” he said in a low voice. “Looked in on you at Getch’s! When—when you and the girl was locked up there, in that back room? Lord ha’ mercy!—why didn’t you tell us?”
“Why should I?” I retorted. “I thought he’d maybe been sent there by you and Getch. Besides, I thought, too, that if he hadn’t and was on his own business, he’d let Middlebourne people know that we were then at Getch’s, and we should get away from you. But there he was!”
“And you think it’s him that’s here now?” he asked quickly. “The same man?”
“Yes, I do!” said I. “It was a brown man who stuck his arm through there, and he’s a brown man. He’s after—you, I should think!”
His face paled still more at the suggestion, and he rose, slowly, to his feet. And to my surprise, for he was not the sort of man that I should have suspected of carrying such things, he twisted his right hand round to the back of his hip, and after some fumbling there brought it back again, gripping a remarkably business-like automatic pistol.
“I don’t hold with the promiskus use o’ these here things, Benjamin,” he remarked, handling his weapon in a way that assured me he knew all about it, “but at times like these, when one’s likely to come across bad characters and desperate men, one’s got to be prepared, and this here gun may come in handy yet, though I hope I shan’t be compelled to make use of it. However, here it is”—he dropped it, as if carelessly, into the right-hand outer pocket of his loosely fitting jacket—“and you think the man went away amongst the shrubs, Benjamin?”
“I heard sounds in that direction, as if he did,” I answered.
“Just so!” he murmured. “Like as not he would, when he found that he was observed. Now I’ll tell you what to do, Benjamin—for we must take what precautions we can. Go you up that old stairway! There’s holes in the tower walls, here and there—keep hid yourself, but see if you can make out anything, anywhere around these ruins, or on what you can see of the island. And I’ll keep an eye on that door—I’m a very fair shot, Benjamin, wi’ one o’ these implements, if occasion arises. Which I hope it mayn’t, for everybody’s sake!”