and clean over the edge into the
sea."

"Eh? But pardon me, how can you possibly remember this?" stammered the
Commandant.

"I saw it," said Vashti, quietly.

"Oh!" The Commandant stared at her, and began to understand. "So you
_were_ the mermaid!"

She nodded. "I happened to be on the rock, outside the entrance, with
my small boat lying in a low spot under its eastern shelter, and so I
put off to him at once. There was a strong run of water into the cave;
the depth was not above three feet when the waves ran back. So I
clutched hold of him--though making sure he was dead--and drew him into
the cave, above high-water mark. It was hard work, though not so hard
as dragging the boat after us."

"Why should you want to drag the boat so far?... You don't mean to tell
me that you have been hiding here, on purpose, while the search has
been going on all around you!"

Vashti laughed. "Why, of course we have! I heard you and Mr. Rogers
last night. You were standing together on the very spot over which I
had hauled the boat: only I had taken the precaution to smooth the sand
over the track of her keel. From the ridge of rock there I launched her
on the freshwater pool, and paddled her across with the Lord Proprietor
safe on board. I was dreadfully afraid, while I listened to your
voices, that you would cross the pool and discover her.

"It lies close?"

"About thirty yards from where we stand."

"To confess the truth," put in the Lord Proprietor, "my fall seems to
have knocked some daylight into me, or else Miss Vashti is a witch.
While she bound up my hurts we had some conversation together----"

"It was I who did the talking," interposed Vashti.

"And that, perhaps, explains why in so short a while I learnt so much.
I learnt enough, sir, at any rate, of you and of Eli Tregarthen to make
me suspect that I had done you both some injustice. I was willing to
hear more; to prolong the adventure which"--he bowed after a fashion
towards Vashti, and not ungallantly--"had its--er--romantic side. I
decided that if Miss Cara spoke with knowledge, it would do me good to
see myself for a brief while as others in the Islands see me, even to
hear what they said of me by way of obituary criticism."

He paused at a sound on the far side of the cave. It came from the
ladder; the sound of Eli's hobnailed boots, rung upon rung, as he
climbed aloft towards the adit, to fasten the tackle there.

"It seems a monstrous height to be s