d out
together on the low ledge of rocks called the South Spit.

With Betteredge's help, I soon stood in the right position to see the
Beacon and the Coast-guard flagstaff in a line together. Following
the memorandum as our guide, we next laid my stick in the necessary
direction, as neatly as we could, on the uneven surface of the rocks.
And then we looked at our watches once more.

It wanted nearly twenty minutes yet of the turn of the tide. I suggested
waiting through this interval on the beach, instead of on the wet and
slippery surface of the rocks. Having reached the dry sand, I prepared
to sit down; and, greatly to my surprise, Betteredge prepared to leave
me.

"What are you going away for?" I asked.

"Look at the letter again, sir, and you will see."

A glance at the letter reminded me that I was charged, when I made my
discovery, to make it alone.

"It's hard enough for me to leave you, at such a time as this," said
Betteredge. "But she died a dreadful death, poor soul--and I feel a kind
of call on me, Mr. Franklin, to humour that fancy of hers. Besides,"
he added, confidentially, "there's nothing in the letter against
your letting out the secret afterwards. I'll hang about in the fir
plantation, and wait till you pick me up. Don't be longer than you can
help, sir. The detective-fever isn't an easy disease to deal with, under
THESE circumstances."

With that parting caution, he left me.

The interval of expectation, short as it was when reckoned by the
measure of time, assumed formidable proportions when reckoned by
the measure of suspense. This was one of the occasions on which the
invaluable habit of smoking becomes especially precious and consolatory.
I lit a cigar, and sat down on the slope of the beach.

The sunlight poured its unclouded beauty on every object that I could
see. The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and
breathing a luxury. Even the lonely little bay welcomed the morning
with a show of cheerfulness; and the bared wet surface of the quicksand
itself, glittering with a golden brightness, hid the horror of its false
brown face under a passing smile. It was the finest day I had seen since
my return to England.

The turn of the tide came, before my cigar was finished. I saw the
preliminary heaving of the Sand, and then the awful shiver that crept
over its surface--as if some spirit of terror lived and moved and
shuddered in the fathomless deeps beneath. I thre