ng, for time had already thinned the luxuriant
growth of his hair, nor was he without encumbrance, for he had fifteen
children. Yet he was an active and intelligent officer, and had once
detected something--he forgot what. But that is not to the point.

What brought him, walking on this particular evening, to the foot of the
beetling cliffs?

Ask the howling wind, which ever and anon flattened him against the
chalk or drove him miles inland up some cavernous cave. Be that as it
may, he walked.

"I wish I could detect something in all this," said he, pulling himself
together, and glancing scornfully into the darkness.

As he did so, Captain Peeler's corpse alighted gracefully on the sand at
his feet.

"Ah, ha!" said he, "this looks like business. Now let me think. How
comes this here?"

There were no footsteps in the sand beside his own, therefore the
miscreant or miscreants must have escaped in some other direction.

"Aha!" said he, presently looking up. "They may be up there."

And he leapt actively to the beetling summit.

"Better and better," said he, looking round him and observing a hoof
mark in the yielding clay, of which he promptly took a plaster cast.
"Another link, ha, ha! the murderer was a horseman!"

And he sat down and wrote a lucid report on the whole case for his
sergeant.

Solomon Smellie was in luck assuredly! Scarcely had he concluded his
literary labour, when, at a distance, he perceived a twinkling light.

"Ha, ha!" said he, "now see how the real artist in crime works. Yonder
is a light. The murderer cannot have gone that way. Therefore he has
gone this."

And he stepped into the railway station just as Sep's train steamed out.

"Too late, this time," muttered he, between his teeth. "But time will
show--time will show!" Never did man speak a truer word!

Sub-Chapter IV.

THE STOWAWAYS.

The "Harnessed Mule" was a splendid vessel of a hundred and fifty tons;
and as she sailed past the Nore like a floating queen flapping her white
wings in the breeze, she reminded the beholders that England still rules
the waves.

Her crew consisted of a skipper, four men, and a boy.

Was that all?

Who is this lurking figure in the forward hold, who, with a complacent
smile on his lips, gazes on a crumpled map, and ever and anon sharpens a
gimlet?

There is a stowaway on board the "Harnessed Mule."

One? There are two.

For in the stern hold lurks another figure, also smili