the cliff, on a level platform cut in the face
of the rock. It seemed a fisherman's cottage; thence might come
breakfast, and for so much our guinea would hold good. There was a
recess in the cliffs, and here I bade Barbara sit and rest herself,
sheltered from view on either side, while I went forward to try my luck
at the cottage. She seemed reluctant to be left, but obeyed me, standing
and watching while I took my way, which I chose cautiously, keeping
myself as much within the shadow as might be. I had sooner not have
ventured this much exposure, but it is ill to face starvation for
safety's sake.

The cottage lay but a hundred yards off, and soon I approached it. It
was hard on six o'clock now, and I looked to find the inmates up and
stirring. I wondered also whether Monmouth were gone to await Barbara
and myself at the Merry Mariners in Deal; alas, we were too near the
trysting-place! Or had he heard by now that the bird was flown from his
lure and caged by that M. de Perrencourt who had treated him so
cavalierly? I could not tell. Here was the cottage; but I stood still
suddenly, amazed and cautious. For there, in the peaceful morning, in
the sun's kindly light, there lay across the threshold the body of a
man; his eyes, wide-opened, stared at the sky, but seemed to see nothing
of what they gazed at; his brown coat was stained to a dark rusty hue on
the breast, where a gash in the stuff showed the passage of a sword. His
hand clasped a long knife, and his face was known to me. I had seen it
daily at my uprising and lying-down. The body was that of Jonah Wall, in
the flesh my servant, in spirit the slave of Phineas Tate, whose
teaching had brought him to this pass.

The sight bred in me swift horror and enduring caution. The two Dukes
had been despatched, sorely against their will, in chase of this man.
Was it to their hands that he had yielded up his life and by their doing
that he lay like carrion? It might well be that he had sought refuge in
this cottage, and having found there death, not comfort, had been flung
forth a corpse. I pitied him; although he had been party to a plot which
had well nigh caused my own death and taken no account of my honour, yet
I was sorry for him. He had been about me; I grieved for him as for the
cat on my hearth. Well, now in death he warned me; it was some
recompense; I lifted my hat as I stole by him and slunk round to the
side of the house. There was a window there, or rather