The watches had found him on the sands at low tide.  One of them walking along the brow of the cliff had seen the dark object lying prone amongst the boulders, a black mass in the midst of the whiteness of the chalk.

The whole thing was shocking, no doubt, gruesome in the extreme, but the mystery which surrounded this strange death had roused ire rather than horror.

Of course the news had traveled slowly from cottage to cottage, although Petty Constable Pyot, who resided at St. Nicholas, had immediately apprised Squire Boatfield and Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse of the awesome discovery made by the watches on the sands of Epple Bay.

Squire Boatfield was major-general of the district and rode over from Sarre directly he heard the news.  The body in the meanwhile had been placed under the shelter of one of the titanic caves which giant hands have carved in the acclivities of the chalk.  Squire Boatfield ordered it to be removed.  It was not fitting that birds of prey should be allowed to peck at the dead, nor that some unusually high tide should once more carry him out to sea, ere his murderer had been brought to justice.

Therefore, the foreigner with the high-sounding name was conveyed by the watches at the squire’s bidding to the cottage of the Lamberts over at Acol, the only place in Thanet which he had ever called his home.

The old Quakeress, wrathful and sullen, had scarce understood what the whole pother was about.  She was hard of hearing, and Petty Constable Pyot was at great pains to explain to her that by the major-general’s orders the body of the murdered man should be laid decently under shelter, until such time as proper burial could be arranged for it.

Fortunately before the small cortege bearing the gruesome burden had arrived at the cottage, young Richard Lambert had succeeded in making the old woman understand what was expected of her.

Even then she flatly and obstinately refused to have the stranger brought into her house.

“He was a heathen,” she declared emphatically, “his soul hath mayhap gone to hell.  His thoughts were evil, and God had him not in His keeping.  ’Tis not fit that the mortal hulk of a damned soul should pollute the saintliness of mine own abode.”

Pyot thought that the old woman was raving, but Master Lambert very peremptorily forbade him to interfere with her.  The young man, though quite calm, looked dangerous—­so thought the petty constable—­and between them, the old Quakeress and the young student defied the constables and the watches and barred the cottage to the entrance of the dead.

Unfortunately, the smith was from home.  Pyot thought that the latter had been more reasonable, that he would have understood the weight of authority, and also of seemliness, which was of equally grave importance.

There was a good deal of parleying before it was finally decided to place the body in the forge, which was a wooden lean-to, resting against the north wall of the cottage.  There was no direct access from the cottage to the forge, and old Mistress Lambert seemed satisfied that the foreigner should rest there, at any rate until the smith came home, when, mayhap, he would decide otherwise.