It was thus matters stood up to the time of the detective's
strange meeting with the girl upon the beach.
As the girl pointed to the house and concluded the words which
close our preceding chapter, she glided away, and left the
detective to "work his own passage".
During the walk along the beach Renie had been a little more
explicit in explaining her immediate peril, and our hero was
prepared to more intelligently enact the role of the
eavesdropper.
The cabin of Tom Pearce, the boatman, was an ordinary
fisherman's hut, built in the midst of white sand-hills, with
a few willows planted on a little patch of made earth, and
serving as protectors against the fierce summer blaze of the
sun.
The detective crept up to the cabin, and climbing upon a rear
shed which served as a cover to several boats and a large
quantity of nets, he covered himself with a fragment of old
sailcloth, and secured a position from where, through a little
opening which in the summer was left unclosed, he could see
into the main room of the cottage. He could not only see, but
could as readily overhear any conversation that might occur.
Glancing into the room, he saw Tom Pearce, whom he had seen
many times before on board several of the boats that sail over
the bay. The fisherman, or rather smuggler, was seated before
a table on which stood a ship's lamp, reading what appeared to
be an old time-stained letter, and after an interval he
muttered aloud:
"Well, well, I don't know what to do! That girl is dear to my
old heart, and I'd rather die than any harm should come to
her; and again I don't like to stand in her way; while
according to this letter from the old woman, written nigh on
to thirteen years ago, I've no right to let her pass from my
possession.
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