rough the rest of the wood, along the side of the stream
which I had expected to find there, and to a small boat that lay
hidden by the mouth of the creek. As they rowed us away in it, and
rounded a spit of land, we saw the yacht, lying under a bluff of the
cliffs. Ten minutes' stiff pulling brought us alongside--and for a
moment, as I glanced up at her rail, I saw the yellow face of a
Chinaman looking down on us. Then it vanished.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PLUM CAKE

In the few moments which elapsed between my catching sight of that
yellow face peering at us from the rail and our setting foot on the
deck of what was virtually a temporary prison, I had time to arrive at
a fairly conclusive estimate of our situation. Without doubt we were
in the hands of Netherfield Baxter and his gang; without doubt this
was the craft which they had bought from the Hull ship broker; without
doubt the reason of its presence on this lonely stretch of the coast
lay in the proceedings amongst the ruins beneath whose walls we had
come face to face with our captors. I saw--or believed that I
saw--through the whole thing. Baxter and his accomplices had bought
the yawl, ostensibly for a trip to the Norwegian fjords, but in
reality that they might sail it up the coast, in the capacity of
private yachtsmen, recover the treasure which had been buried near the
tombs of the de Knaythevilles, and then--go elsewhere. Miss Raven and
I had broken in upon their operations, and we were to pay for the
accident with our liberty. I was not concerned about myself--I fancied
that I saw a certain amount of honesty in Baxter's assurances--but I
was anxious about my companion, and about her uncle's anxiety. Miss
Raven was not the sort of girl to be easily frightened, but the
situation, after all, was far from pleasant--there we were,
defenceless, amongst men who were engaged in a dark and desperate
adventure, whose hands were probably far from clean in the matter of
murder, and who, if need arose, would doubtless pay small regard to
our well-being or safety. Yet--there was nothing else for it but to
accept the situation.

We went on deck. The vessel was at anchor; she lay, a thing of
idleness, quiet and peaceful enough, in a sheltered cove, wherein, I
saw at a glance, she was lost to sight from the open sea outside the
bar at its entrance, and hid from all but the actual coastline of the
land. And all was quiet on her clean, freshly-scoured decks--she
loo