Doctor Syn

of the room, and then for what seemed an interminable time Morgan Walters worked away at his bonds, and presently became aware that his companion was doing likewise. They couldn’t talk, for they found that, just as soon as they tried to, the breath that they took in through the anaesthetic overpowered their senses. Presently Morgan Walters thought that he could hear the sound of horses. It sounded like a regiment of pack-ponies trotting on the high road⁠—tlip tlop they went, a slow tlip tlop, and a lot of them, too. These were his very words. Then he heard a sigh of satisfaction from his companion, and saw him stand up, for he had partially unbound himself. Whether to let in the refreshing sea air, or whether he had also heard the horses and wanted to locate them, Morgan Walters couldn’t say, but Bill Spiker had got to the broken window and unbolted the shutters. He felt the cold air come into the room with a great gasp, and then he seemed to have dozed off again, but the next thing he heard was a great scream of agony, and turning over he beheld Bill Spiker embracing the wall, and the wall held him up, for there was a weapon transfixed to it through his companion’s neck. The very horror and sudden surprise of the thing caused Morgan Walters to make a superb effort, and he somehow stood upon his feet. Then came a curious thing: He saw between himself and the now repulsive form of his fellow a man⁠—a yellow-faced man⁠—the mulatto seaman. With one hand the creature plucked the weapon from the wall and drew it back through the bleeding neck that held it. This was strangely vivid to Morgan Walters, and he could recall his thought of wonder that the blood in no way stained the yellow hand that drew the reeking steel from the flesh. The body of Bill Spiker fell from the wall and collapsed in a heap, and a hand seemed to strike Morgan Walters at the same time, for he lost consciousness again and remembered little else.

“Did the mulatto touch you?” asked the captain, speaking suddenly and rather loud, so that all in the room gave a perceptible start. “Think well, my man.”

“I am quite certain of that, sir. I know he did not!”

“And yet you were knocked down!”

“So it seems, sir, but it may have been just losing consciousness again. I’ve never fainted before, so perhaps it was that, or the effects of the smelly stuff on the kerchief.”

“And you remember nothing else?”

“One thing, though whether I dreamt that or not I couldn’t swear to, but it seemed that when I come to something like myself the dawn was breaking, for the room was filled with a gray light, when suddenly something came into the room and closed those shutters. Then I fell off into another sort of sleep and dreamt that people were trying to wake me up by banging on the shutters, and then at last⁠—hours after it, it seemed⁠—you came, sir, and freed me.”

“One moment,” said the captain; “this something that closed the shutters⁠—a man?”

“Yes, like a man.”

“Like what man?”

“Well, sir, it was like one of them devils that I’d seen leaving the room that night. It also reminded me⁠—yes, it reminded me of that gentleman there, a-standing at that door⁠—that sexton; in fact, now I comes to think of it and look at him, I remembers dreaming a lot about him in the night.”

“Thank you kindly,” said Mr. Mipps, who was indeed listening to the narrative from the door, “but don’t trouble to drag me into it, mate. I gives you my word that we were all as merry as crickets till you King’s men come nigh the place, and as for talks of demons and suchlike, well, there’s always gossip of such, of course, but since you fellows come aboard, the talk’s been of nothing else; and murders, too. Why, we’d never heard of murders, except, of course, in church we’d heard as how there was such things. We was as happy and contented a pleasant-going little village as you could have wished, we was; but now, so help me God! you fellows have turned our little spot into a regular witches’ kitchen, that you have. Two days you’ve been here, and two murders we’ve had⁠—one a day⁠—and if you stays here for a year, as you can calculate for yourself, we’ll have three hundred and sixty-five, at the present rate. Of course it’s good for my trade, so I says nothing. Go on murdering to your hearts’ content, for I can knock up one a day all right, but I ain’t a-goin’ to take any blame about it, and, wot’s more, I object to being dreamt about; so another night kindly leave me out of your adventures, ’cos I don’t like bein’ mixed up with such traffic.”

Saying which Mipps stepped across to the corpse of Bill Spiker, and, producing his footrule, measured him up, and entered the same in a dirty notebook.

The captain then proceeded to the barn and soundly rated his still drowsy men; and putting the bo’sun in charge of the corpse, he asked Doctor Syn to join him for breakfast at the Ship. And as there was no schoolmaster, and consequently no school, Jerry Jerk had the extreme pleasure of waiting upon them.

XXII

A Curious Breakfast Party

During the meal Jerry took good stock of both men. The captain’s manner was sullen and grumpy. He was turning things over in his mind that he was incapable of solving⁠—things altogether out of his ken. Doctor Syn, on the other hand, seemed eager to discuss all these curious events, but underlying his interesting, polished, quiet conversation there smouldered a nameless fear which now and then burst into flames of enthusiastic fury⁠—fury against the captain’s apparent inactivity in taking measures to find and capture the mysterious mulatto. But he never went