s murderous figure and
strung for swift action, I started and (albeit the night was very warm)
felt a chill pass over me, as, loud and clear upon the stilly air, rose
again that full, deep voice singing hard by upon Deliverance:

"Go seek ye women everywhere,
North, South, lads, East or West,
Let 'em be dark, let 'em be fair,
My Silver Woman's best,
Blow high, blow low,
Where e'er ye go
The Silver Woman's best.
Aha!
My Silver Woman's best!"

Thus sang the unknown who, all unwitting, was coming to his death;
sudden as it came the voice was hushed and nought to hear save the hiss
and murmur of the surge, and I saw the man Andy stir restlessly as
minute after minute dragged by.

The rock where he crouched lay at the mouth of this cove towards
Deliverance, it being one of many that lay piled thereabout. Now
chancing to look towards these scattered rocks (and for no reason in
the world) I saw a thing that held me as it were spellbound, and this a
small enough thing in itself, a sharp, glittering thing that seemed
fast caught in a fissure of one of those rocks, and I knew it for a
steel hook; but even as I stared at it, the thing was gone and so
noiselessly that I half-doubted if I had seen it or no. But, out from
the shadow of this rock flashed something that whirled, glittering as
it flew, and Red Andy, starting up from his knees was shaken by a fit
of strange and awful coughing and came stumbling forward so that I
could see his chin and breast bedabbled with the blood that spurted
from his gaping mouth. All at once he sank to his knees and thence to
his face, spreading his arms wide like one very weary, but with the
moonlight flashing back from that which stood upright betwixt his
shoulder-blades. And thus I saw again the silver haft of the dagger
that was shaped like to a woman, saw this silver woman dance and leap,
glittering, ere it grew terribly still.

Then came Roger Tressady from the shadows and stooping, turned up the
dead face to the moon, and tapped it gently with his shining hook. And
now, whipping out his dagger, he bent to wipe it on the dead man's
shirt, but checked suddenly as a pebble started beneath my foot, and,
stooped thus, he glared up beneath thick brows as I rose up with pistol
levelled and the moon bright upon my face, whereupon he leaped
backwards, uttering a choking cry:

"Black Bartlemy--by God!" he gasped and let fall his reeking dagger
upon the sand; and so w