Following in the steps of Peter, who seemed in an airy and uncomfortable fashion to be bearing me company, I struck across the point, at the base of the rough slope which marks the first rise of the peak.  As I neared the sea on the other side great crags began to overhang the path, which was, of course, no path, but merely the line of least resistance through the woods.  Soon the noise of the sea, of which one was never altogether free on the island, though it reaches the recesses of the forest only as a vast nameless murmur, broke in heightened clamor on my ears.  I heard the waves roaring and dashing on rocks far below—­and then I stood at the dizzy edge of the plateau looking out over the illimitable gleaming reaches of the sea.

Somewhere in this angle between the ragged margin of the cliffs and the abrupt rise of the craggy mountainside, according to Peter’s journal, lay the grave.  I began systematically to poke with a stick I carried into every low-growing mass of vines or bushes.  Because of the comparatively rocky, sterile soil the woods were thinner here, and the undergrowth was greater.  Only the very definite localization of the grave by the accommodating diarist gave any hope of finding it.

And then, quite suddenly, I found it.  My proddings had displaced a matted mass of ground-creeper.  Beneath, looking raw and naked without its leafy covering, was the “curiously regular little patch of ground, outlined at intervals with small stones.”  Panic-stricken beetles scuttled for refuge.  A great green slug undulated painfully across his suddenly denuded pasture, A whole small world found itself hurled back to chaos.

At the head of the grave lay a large, smoothly-rounded stone.  I knelt and brushed away some obstinate vine-tendrils, and the letters “B.  H.” revealed themselves, cut deeply and irregularly into the sloping face of the stone.  Below was the half-intelligible symbol of the crossed bones.

There was something in the utter loneliness of the place that caught my breath sharply.  At once I had the feeling of a marauder.  Here slept the guardian of the treasure—­and yet in defiance of him I meant to have it.  So, too, had Peter—­and I didn’t know yet what he had managed to do to Peter—­but I guessed from his journal that Peter had been a slightly morbid person.  He had let the wild solitude of the island frighten him.  He had indulged foolish fancies about crucifixes.  He had in fact let the defenses of his will be undermined ever so little—­and then of course there was no telling what They could do to you.

With an impatient shiver I got up quickly from my knees.  What abominable nonsense I had been talking—­was there a miasma about that old grave that affected one?  I whistled to Crusoe, who was trotting busily about on mysterious intelligence conveyed to him by his nose.  He ran to me joyfully, and I stooped and patted his warm vigorous body.

“Let Bill walk, Crusoe,” I remarked, “let him!  He needn’t be a dog in the manger about the treasure, anyhow.”