“‘Summut fell on him from a winder,’ said Dark Dignum, a little later, as he were drinkin’ hisself hoarse in the Black Boy.  ’Summut fell on him retributive, as you might call it.  For, would you believe it, the man had at the moment been threatenin’ me?  He did.  He said, “I know damn well about you, Dignum; and for all your damn ingenuity, I’ll bring you with a crack to the ground yet."’

“What had happened?  Nobody knew, sir.  But Exciseman Jones was in his bed for a fortnight; and when he got on his legs again, it was pretty evident there was a hate between the two men that only blood-spillin’ could satisfy.

“So far as is known, they never spoke to one another again.  They played their game of death in silence—­the lawful, cold and unfathomable; the unlawful, swaggerin’ and crool—­and twenty year separated the first move and the last.

“This were the first, sir—­as Dark Dignum leaked it out long after in his cups.  This were the first; and it brought Exciseman Jones to his grave on the cliff here.

“It were a deep soft summer night; and the young smuggler sat by hisself in the long room of the Black Boy.  Now, I tell you he were a fox-ship intriguer—­grand, I should call him, in the aloneness of his villainy.  He would play his dark games out of his own hand; and sure, of all his wickedness, this game must have seemed the sum.

“I say he sat by hisself; and I hear the listening ghost of him call me a liar.  For there were another body present, though invisible to mortal eye; and that second party were Exciseman Jones, who was hidden up the chimney.

“How had he inveigled him there?  Ah, they’ve met and worried that point out since.  No other will ever know the truth this side the grave.  But reports come to be whispered; and reports said as how Dignum had made an appointment with a bodiless master of a smack as never floated, to meet him in the Black Boy and arrange for to run a cargo as would never be shipped; and that somehow he managed to acquent Exciseman Jones o’ this dissembling appointment, and to secure his presence in hidin’ to witness it.

“That’s conjecture; for Dignum never let on so far.  But what is known for certain is that Exciseman Jones, who were as daring and determined as his enemy—­p’r’aps more so—­for some reason was in the chimney, on to a grating in which he had managed to lower hisself from the roof; and that he could, if given time, have scrambled up again with difficulty, but was debarred from going lower.  And, further, this is known—­that, as Dignum sat on, pretendin’ to yawn and huggin’ his black intent, a little sut plopped down the chimney and scattered on the coals of the laid fire beneath.

“At that—­’Curse this waitin’!’ said he.  ’The room’s as chill as a belfry’; and he got to his feet, with a secret grin, and strolled to the hearthstone.

“‘I wonder,’ said he, ‘will the landlord object if I ventur’ upon a glint of fire for comfort’s sake?’ and he pulled out his flint and steel, struck a spark, and with no more feelin’ than he’d express in lighting a pipe, set the flame to the sticks.