“Perhaps some one has been out for a row for his own pleasure and enjoyment,” suggested Christian, without thinking much of what he was saying.
“Smugglers, I suppose,” said Hilda, smiling down at her small brother, “would be provided with skeleton keys.”
“Of course,” replied Stanley in an awestruck tone.
“I will tell you what we will do, Stanley,” said Christian. “To-morrow morning we will go and have a bathe; at the same time I will look at the boat and tell you whether it has been moved.”
“Unless,” added Hilda, “a telegram comes today.”
“Unless,” he said gravely, “the world comes to an end this evening.”
It happened during the precise moments occupied by this conversation, that Mr. Bodery, seated at his table in the little editor's room, opened the flimsy brown envelope of a telegram. He spread out the pink paper, and Mr. Morgan, seated opposite, raised his head from the closely-written sheets upon which his hand was resting.
“It is from Vellacott,” said the editor, and after a moment's thought he read aloud as follows:--
“Letter and papers received; believe I have dropped into the clue of the whole affair. Will write particulars.”
Mr. Morgan caressed his heavy moustache with the end of his penholder.
“That young man,” he said, “goes about the world with his eyes remarkably wide open, ha-ha!”
Mr. Bodery rolled the telegram out flat with his pencil silently.
Stanley Carew was so anxious that the inspection of the boat should not be delayed, that an expedition to the Cove was arranged for the same afternoon. Accordingly the five young people walked across the bleak tableland together. Huge white clouds were rolling up from the south-west, obscuring every now and then the burning sun. A gentle breeze blew gaily across the bleak upland--a very different breath from that which twisted and gnarled the strong Scotch firs in winter-time.
“You would not care about climbing _down_ there, I should think,” observed Sidney, when they had reached the Cove. “It is a very different matter getting up.”
He was standing, gazing lazily up at the brown cliffs with his straw hat tilted backwards, his hands in his pockets, and his whole person presenting as fair a picture as one could desire of lazy, quiescent strength--a striking contrast to the nervous, wiry townsman at his side.
