in
short, after the sea had retreated and the cave was again dry. That is
why they were dry; of course, much drier than the cave. Who put them
there, I wonder?"

He was gazing gravely through his spectacles over their heads into
vacancy, and suddenly he smiled.

"Ah," he cried, jumping up from the rock with alacrity, "here is the
amateur detective at last!"

Ashe turned his head over his shoulder, and for a few seconds did not
move it again, but stood as if with a stiff neck. In the cliff just
behind him was one of the clefts or cracks into which it was everywhere
cloven. Advancing from this into the sunshine, as if from a narrow door,
was Squire Vane, with a broad smile on his face.

The wind was tearing from the top of the high cliff out to sea, passing
over their heads, and they had the sensation that everything was passing
over their heads and out of their control. Paynter felt as if his head
had been blown off like a hat. But none of this gale of unreason seemed
to stir a hair on the white head of the Squire, whose bearing, though
self-important and bordering on a swagger, seemed if anything more
comfortable than in the old days. His red face was, however, burnt like
a sailor's, and his light clothes had a foreign look.

"Well, gentlemen," he said genially, "so this is the end of the legend
of the peacock trees. Sorry to spoil that delightful traveler's tale,
Mr. Paynter, but the joke couldn't be kept up forever. Sorry to put a
stop to your best poem, Mr. Treherne, but I thought all this poetry had
been going a little too far. So Doctor Brown and I fixed up a little
surprise for you. And I must say, without vanity, that you look a little
surprised."

"What on earth," asked Ashe at last, "is the meaning of all this?"

The Squire laughed pleasantly, and even a little apologetically,

"I'm afraid I'm fond of practical jokes," he said, "and this I suppose
is my last grand practical joke. But I want you to understand that the
joke is really practical. I flatter myself it will be of very practical
use to the cause of progress and common sense, and the killing of such
superstitions everywhere. The best part of it, I admit, was the doctor's
idea and not mine. All I meant to do was to pass a night in the trees,
and then turn up as fresh as paint to tell you what fools you were. But
Doctor Brown here followed me into the wood, and we had a little talk
which rather changed my plans. He told me that a disappearance f