ve understood the question, for he answered, squinting up
at me knowingly as he stooped over his end of my chest: "I see you got
rid of _him_, Mr. Nick, and in short order, too. I spoke him a little
way back, bound for Sidmouth with all sails set--at least, he was laying
a course that way. Come on board, ma'am!" He pulled his forelock and
made a leg respectfully before Mary (albeit eying her with no small
interest) as we shoved our burden through the door. The girl clapped it
shut, with a sharp struggle against the draught, and in the momentary
silence that followed we stood awkwardly and apprehensively surveying
one another, while the hurricane rumbled outside.

"I asked you if you had seen my grandfather," I said to Crump, at last.

"Seen the cap'n? Why, no, sir," he said, surprised. "I was telling you
I saw----" He stopped, with a glance at Mary.

"Yes, go on. You saw _him_? Where? What was he doing?" she said sharply.

"I was saying he crossed my bows laying his course for Sidmouth, or that
way," said Crump, evidently striving for a witness-box exactness. "He
didn't answer my hail. Looked like he was in too much of a hurry."

Mary cast a troubled look about. "Did he have anything with him? A
portmanteau, or carpet-bag, or anything to carry clothes?"

"Not that I noticed," said Crump carefully. "Looked as if he was going
out in ballast--except his pockets; there was something in his pockets,
I should say."

I stared at Mary in some perplexity. What the fat man did, or what
should become of him, were, indeed, matters of indifference to me,
except so far as they concerned her. I was well enough pleased that he
should go, but there was something unusual in the manner of his going;
it was a headlong flight. To tell the truth, I had looked for further
trouble with him. What would the girl do now? And where was Captain
Pendarves? She met me with eyes at once frightened and resolute.

"First of all we must find Captain Pendarves--we must go look for him,"
she said, answering my thought and making up my mind for me in a trice.
(She has a way of doing this, displaying the most unerring accuracy at
it any time these twenty years!) And, in the turn of a hand, she had
kilted up her skirts, tied a shawl, over her head, and was making for
the kitchen door.

"Lord love you, miss, you can't go out in this!" said Crump, aghast.

"Why not? I've been out in it once already."

"But, Mary!" I cried, and tried to withhold her.