“He was a long way ahead when he come to it, but he never stopped.  He just gave one glance down at me, and went on to the ridge.  I watched him balancing along it like a man on a tight rope, mounting higher and higher, for the ridge went up steep on the far side.  Thinks I to myself, ’You’re a plucky one,’ then all of a sudden I heard a shout from below, and looked down.  There stood Turold, waving me out of the way.  He’d been to the boat for a gun we’d brought with us, and was taking aim at Remington.  The next thing I saw was Remington turning round on the ledge to come back to my side, having found out, I suppose, that the ridge would take him into the crater.  Just as he turned I heard the shot.  It must have winged Remington pretty bad, because he went tumbling off the ridge head first, like a man taking a dive into the water.  I turned and climbed down to where I’d left Turold.  His face was all aglow with rage.  ‘The infernal scoundrel!’ he said, then—­’Did you get the diamonds?’ ’How was I to get them when I never caught him?’ I said.  ’Then we’ll get them off his body in the morning,’ he said in a low tone.  ‘You’ll never do that,’ says I. He asks me why not, turning on me a face as savage as a dog’s.  ’Because whichever side he’s dropped he’s safe from us,’ I said.  ’There’s a hole that no man’s ever seen the bottom of on one side of the ridge, and on the other a stinking lake of green boiling sulphur.  When you shot him you sent him into one or the other, so you can say good-bye to him and the diamonds.’  ‘Oh!’ he cries, when he heard that—­just like that; then after a bit he points up the path, and asks me to go back and have a look for him.  I went back as far as the ridge.  The moon was clear as day, shining on that infernal green lake on the one side, and into the deep hole on the other.  The lake was bubbling and stewing in the moonlight like a witchpot, and the other side of the ridge was just black emptiness, and there was no sign of Remington—­I knowed there couldn’t be.  Back I went again, and as I was climbing down the path to where Turold was standing I saw something glinting in the black sand at his feet, and when I got there I picked up the bottle of diamonds where Remington must have dropped them when struggling with Turold.  I gave them to Turold.  ‘And now,’ says I, ’let’s get out of here.  The moon’s bright enough to let me find my way through the reefs, and this island ain’t a healthy place to stay too long on.  I know it, and you don’t.’  He was glad enough to follow me to the boat, and we got through on a good flowing tide.”

Thalassa stopped abruptly, as though to leave on his listener’s mind an impression of that furtive departure on a dark whispering sea beneath a blood-red moon.

“You got back to the mainland?” queried Charles, as he remained silent.

“Ay—­and to England.  Afore we got there Turold had persuaded himself that Remington slipped off the ridge accidental, and that he missed him when he fired.”