“No,” said Rufus slowly, speaking with a strangely careful accent, as if his mind were concentrated upon being absolutely intelligible to his listener.  “That was not my idea.”

The spirit of adventure awoke in Knight.  There was something behind this granite calmness of demeanour then.  He determined to draw it forth, even though he struck further sparks in the process.

“No?” he said carelessly.  “Then why this pleasure trip?  Did you bring me out here just to show me—­the ’Pit of the Burning’?”

His eyes were upon the dazzling glory of the newly risen sun as he threw the question.  Rufus’s massive head and shoulders were strongly outlined against it.  He had ceased to row, but the boat still shot forward, impelled by the last powerful sweep of the oars, the water streaming past in a rush of foam.

Slowly, like the hammer-strokes of a deep-toned bell, came Rufus’s voice in answer.  “It wasn’t to show you anything I brought you here.  It was just to tell you something.”

“Really?” Knight’s interest was thoroughly aroused.  He became alert to the finger-tips.  There was something in the deliberate utterance that conveyed a sense of danger.  A wary gleam shone in his eyes under their level brows.  It was one of his principles when dealing with an uncertain situation never to betray surprise.  “And what may this valuable piece of information be?” he inquired, with a smile.

Rufus shipped his oars steadily, gravely, with purpose.  “I saw you cross the quicksand last night,” he said.

“Indeed!” Knight’s voice was of the most casual quality.  He was feeling for his cigarette-case.

Rufus continued heavily, fatefully, gathering force with every word, as a loosened rock beginning to roll down a mountain side.  “The light was bad.  It was a tomfool thing to do.  And Columbine was with you.”

Knight raised his shoulders ever so slightly.  “Or rather—­I was with her.  Miss Columbine knows the lie of the quicksand.  I—­do not.”

Rufus went on as if he had not spoken.  “There’s danger all along that beach as far as the Spear Point.  Adam will tell you the same.  When it’s a spring tide there’s times when there’s such a swell that it’s round the Point and over the pool like a tidal wave.  You’ll hear the bell-buoy tolling when there’s a swell like that.  We call it the Death Current hereabouts, because there’s nothing could live in it, and the bell always tolls.  And once it comes up like that the way to the cliff-path is under water in less than thirty seconds.  And the quicksand is the only chance left.”  He paused; it was as if the rock halted for a moment on the edge of the precipice before plunging finally into the abyss of silence below.  “When there’s a ground swell,” he said, “the quicksand will pull a man down quicker than hell.  And there’s no one—­not Adam himself—­can tell the lay of it for certain when the light is bad.”