The Master of the Ceremonies. Fenn George Manville

him, and he felt ready to retreat as he saw that the folding-doors were not closed, and that the faint light from the back window made several articles of furniture look grotesque and strange.

      “Here am I, just twenty, and as cowardly as a girl,” he muttered. “I won’t be afraid.”

      All the same, though, his heart beat violently, and he shrank from moving for some minutes.

      “And Dick waiting,” he muttered.

      Those words gave him the strength he sought, and, going on tiptoe across the room, half feeling as if a hand were going to be laid upon his shoulder to keep him back, he drew aside the blind, opened the French window, passed out, closed it after him, and stood there in the balcony, gazing at the heaving, star-spangled sea.

      “I can’t be a man yet,” he said to himself. “If I were I shouldn’t feel so nervous. It is very horrid, though, the first time after that old woman was killed; and by some one coming up there. Ugh! it’s very creepy. I half fancied I could hear the old girl snoring as she used.”

      He leaned over the balcony rails and looked to right and left, but all seemed silent in the sleeping town, and after listening for a minute or two he seized the support of the balcony roof, stepped over the rails, lowered himself a little, and clasping the pillar with his legs, slid easily down, rested for a moment on the railings with his feet between the spikes, and then, clasping the pillar, dropped lightly down upon the pavement, to be seized by two strong hands by arm and throat, a dark figure having stepped out of the doorway to hold him fast.

      Volume One – Chapter Fourteen.

      Something Thrown in the Sea

      “What – ”

      “Hush! Who are you? What are you doing here? Why, Morton Denville!”

      “Richard Linnell! Is it you? Oh, I say, you did give me a scare. I thought it was that chap come again.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Why, the fellow who did that, you know,” said the lad with a nod upwards.

      “But why have you stolen down like this, sir?”

      “Don’t talk so loud; you’ll wake the old man. Only going fishing.”

      “Fishing? Now?”

      “Yes. Fisherman Dick’s waiting for me on the pier.”

      “Is this true?” asked Linnell sternly. “True! What do you mean?” said the lad haughtily. “Did you ever know a Denville tell a lie?”

      “No, of course not. But it looks bad, young fellow, to see you stealing out of the house like this, and after that ghastly affair.”

      “Hush, don’t talk about it,” said the lad with a shudder. “But, I say, how came you here?”

      “I – I – ” stammered Linnell. “Oh, I was walking along the cliff and I saw the window open. I thought something was wrong, and I crossed to see.”

      “Did you think some one had come to run away with my sister, Mr Linnell?” said the lad with a sneering laugh. “Ah, well, you needn’t have been alarmed, and if they had it would have been no business of yours.”

      Richard Linnell drew his breath with a faint hiss.

      “That’s rather a sneering remark, young gentleman,” he said coldly; “but there, I don’t want to quarrel with you.”

      “All the same to me if you did, only if you will take a bit of good advice, stop at home, and don’t be hanging about gentlemen’s houses at this time of night. It looks bad. There, now you can knock at the door and ring them up and tell them I’ve gone fishing. I don’t care.”

      He thrust his hands in his pockets and strutted away, trying to appear very manly and independent, but nature would not permit him to look like anything but a big, overgrown boy.

      Richard Linnell drew his breath again with the same low hiss, and stood watching the retiring figure, after which he followed the boy along the cliff till he saw him reach the pier, where a gruff voice greeted him; and, satisfied that the truth had been spoken, he turned off and went home.

      “Thought you wasn’t coming, lad,” said Fisherman Dick. “Here, just you ketch hold o’ yon basket, and let’s get to work.”

      Morton seized the basket of bait, and together they walked to the very end of the pier, at one corner of which was a gangway and some steps, down which they went to a platform of open beams, moist with spray, and only about a foot above the water now the tide was high, the promenade forming the ceiling above their heads.

      It was very dark, and the damp, salt smell of the weed that hung to the piles was floating around, while the misty spray every now and then moistened their hands and faces. On all sides huge square wooden piles rose up, looking grim and strange in the gloom, and before them the star-spangled sea heaved and sank, and heaved and sighed and whispered in amongst the woodwork, every now and then seeming to give a hungry smack as if the waves were the lips of some monstrous mouth, trying to seize upon the two fishers for its prey.

      “Didn’t I tell you?” said Dick Miggles: “Sea’s just right, and the fish’ll bite like anything. We ought to get ten shillings’ worth to-night. There you are; go ahead.”

      Dick had been busy unwinding a line, whose hooks he had already baited; and then, for the next quarter of an hour they were busy catching and hauling in whiting and large dabs, and every now and then a small conger, the basket filling rapidly.

      Then, all at once, the fish ceased biting, and they sat waiting and feeling the lines, trying to detect a touch.

      “Some one coming,” said Dick suddenly, in a low whisper. “What’s he want to-night?”

      “Sh!” whispered back Morton. “Don’t speak, or I shall be found out.”

      “Right,” answered Dick in the same low tone; and as they sat there in the darkness with the water lapping just beneath them, and a wave coming in among the piles every now and then with a hiss and a splash, they could hear the slow, firm tread of some one coming down the pier, right to the end, to stand there as if listening, quite still above their heads.

      All at once the night-breeze wafted to them the scent of a good cigar, and they knew that whoever it was must be smoking.

      At the same moment, Morton felt a tug at his line, and he knew a fish had hooked itself.

      It was all he could do to keep from dragging it in; but he was, in spite of his boasting, afraid of his nocturnal expedition coming to his father’s ears, and he remained still.

      Fisherman Dick had moved so silently that Morton had not heard him; but all at once the planks overhead seemed veined with light, and the figure of the fisherman could be seen dimly, with his face close up to a hole in the planking. The light died out as quickly as it shone, and the odour of tobacco diffused itself again, while the man overhead began to walk slowly up and down.

      Tug-tug-tug! How that fish – a big one, too – did pull! But Morton resisted the temptation, and waited, till all at once it seemed to him that the smoker must have heard them, and was about to come down, for he was evidently listening.

      Then there was a shuffling of feet, a curious expiration of the breath, and a sort of grunt, followed by utter silence; and then, some fifty yards away, right in front of where Morton sat, there was a faint golden splash in the sea, and the noise of, as it were, a falling stone or piece of wood.

      Almost at the same moment Morton noticed that his line had become phosphorescent, and he could see it for some distance down as the fish he had hooked dragged it here and there.

      Then there was a sigh overhead as of relief, and the steps were heard again, gradually going back along the pier, and dying slowly away.

      Simultaneously, Morton Denville and the fisherman began hauling in their lines, the former listening the while, to make sure that the promenader did not return; and then, as all was silent, their captives were drawn on to the open planking, to break the silence with flapping and beating