t always been frozen. The crabs had found it, and
even the heavy clothing was torn to strips. Mr. Darling stooped and took
a little, red-bound casket from the torn breast. With his back to George
Wick he opened it with trembling fingers. The diamonds and rubies of
Lady Harwood's necklace flashed up at him!

CHAPTER XVI

MR. DARLING ARRIVES IN CHANCE ALONG

Mr. John Darling stood spellbound for a full half-minute, gazing down at
the flaming, flashing gems coiled in their silken bed. He was aroused
from his wonder and wild conjecture by the voice of George Wick.

"What bes the trouble, sir?" called the fisherman, who was busy fending
the bully off the rocks. "Who bes it, anyhow? It bain't no friend o'
yerself, sir, surely?"

Darling shut the casket and slipped it into an inner breast-pocket of
his reefer. He turned slowly toward the sea and the boat, with a studied
expression of puzzled pity on his face.

"Some poor fellow who has stepped off the cliff," he said. "I never saw
him before--but the sight of him shook me a bit. He has been here quite
awhile, I should say--yes, through thaw and frost, frost and thaw. Aye,
and the crabs have been at him, poor devil! I suppose we should bury
him; but there is no place here to dig a grave."

"Come aboard, sir! Come aboard wid ye!" exclaimed Wick, in a trembling
voice. "It bain't no affair of our'n, sir--an' there bes the divil's own
luck in finding a dead man unexpected."

Mr. Darling crossed the land-wash without another word, waded knee-deep
into the tide, and climbed aboard the boat. George Wick poled the bully
clear of the surf with one of the oars, then jumped forward and hoisted
the red sail. Darling drew his chart from his pocket, examined it, then
raised his glasses and studied the coast-line to the southward. The wind
was light, but dead on shore. The bully hauled across it cleverly. A
whitish gray haze stood along the sky-line to the east.

"We'll be havin' thick weather afore sun-down, sir, wid this wind
holdin'," said Wick.

Darling nodded. "We must be getting pretty close to Chance Along," he
said. "Yes, there is smoke. Can you see it?"

George could not make it out with his unassisted eyes, but through the
glasses he saw the blue reek of wood-smoke above a distant point of the
coast easily enough. An hour later the bully threaded the rocks off
Squid Beach. Dick Lynch had spoken of these rocks when the rum was warm
in his head, in the tap-room of