Chinese quarters of the East End into his
confidence, and engineered a secret conspiracy for securing the
valuables. He himself had probably tracked Salter to the lonely bit of
shore near Ravensdene Court; associates of his had no doubt fallen
upon Noah at Saltash. But how had all this led up to the attack of the
Chinese on Baxter and the Frenchman?--and who was the man who, leaving
every other member of the yawl's company dead or dying and who had
exchanged those last shots with Netherfield Baxter, had escaped to the
shore and was now, no doubt, endeavouring to make a final bid for
liberty?

Reckoning up everything we saw, it seemed to me, from my knowledge of
the preceding incidents, that the drug which the Chinese gentleman, as
Baxter had been pleased to style him, had not had the effects that he
desired and anticipated, and that one or other of the two men to whom
it had been administered had been aroused from sleep before any attack
could be made on both. I figured things in this way--Baxter, or the
Frenchman, or both, had awakened and missed the Chinaman. One or both
had turned out to seek him; had discovered that Miss Raven and I were
missing; had scented danger to themselves, found the Chinese up to
some game, and opened fire on them. Evidently the first fighting--as I
had gathered from the revolver shots--had been sharp and decisive; I
formed the conclusion that when it was over there were only two men
left alive, of whom one was Baxter and the other the man whom we had
seen escaping in the boat. Baxter, I believed, had put up some sort of
barricade and watched his enemy from it; that he himself was already
seriously wounded I gathered from two facts--one that his body had
several superficial wounds on arms and shoulders, and that in the
cabin behind the hastily-constructed barricade, sheets had been torn
into strips for bandages which we found on these wounds, where, as far
as he could, he had roughly twisted them. Then, according to my
thinking, he had eventually seen the other survivor, who was probably
in like case with himself as regards superficial wounds, endeavouring
to make off, and emerging from his shelter had fired on him from the
side of the yawl, only to be killed himself by return fire. There was
no mistaking the effect of that last shot--chance shot or
well-directed aim it had done for Netherfield Baxter, and he had
crumpled up and died where he dropped.

A significant exclamation from Scarte