As he lay, he thought of the dead man with the bound hands and feet in the silent chamber behind him, bound by the forebears of these men, who, in turn, were seeking him, and would treat him as ruthlessly if they found him.

He took the lesson to heart, and braced himself to patient endurance, though, indeed, he began to ask himself gloomily what was the use of it all.  In the end, their venomous persistence must make an end of him.  One man could not fight for ever against a whole community.

And at that he chided himself.  Not a whole community!  For was not Nance on his side—­hoping and praying and working for him with all her might and main?  And her mother, and Grannie, and the Vicar, and the Doctor, and the Senechal?  He was sure they all knew him far too well to doubt him.  And all these and the Truth must surely prevail.

But the long strain had been sore on him, and in spite of his anxieties he fell asleep in his hole, and dreamed that the dead man came crawling down the tunnel, and dragged him back into the chamber, and tied his hands and feet, and went away, and left him to die there all alone.  And so strong was the impression upon him that, when he woke, he lay wondering who had loosed his bonds, and could not make out how he had got back into the mouth of the tunnel.

It was still quite dark.  He was stiff with lying in that cramped place.  He was strongly tempted to climb out and see how matters lay.  For he might be able to find out in the dark, whereas daylight would make him prisoner again.

He wanted eggs, too.  Nance’s provision had served him well all day, but if he had to spend another day there something more would be welcome.

But then it struck him that if he went up in the dark he might never be able to find his way back again.  The cleft under the slab was difficult to hit upon even in daylight.  There were scores of just similar ragged black holes among the tumbled rocks of the great wall.

As he lay pondering it all, the grim idea came into his head of dragging the dead man through the tunnel, and hoisting him up outside, and leaving him propped up among the boulders where they would be sure to find him.

He knew how arrantly superstitious they were, most of them.  They had been brought up on ghosts and witches and evil spirits, and, fearless as they might be of things mortal and natural, all that bordered on the unknown and uncanny held for them unimaginable terrors.  The dead man might serve a useful purpose after all; and the grim idea grew.

He could decide nothing, however, till he learned if he had the rock to himself; and he determined to take the risk of finding this out.

He cautiously climbed the well, and by the look of the stars he judged it still very early morning.  A brooding grey darkness covered the sea; the sky was dark even in the east.

He slipped off his coat and left it hanging out of the cleft as a landmark, and lowered himself silently from rock to rock, till he stood among the rank grasses below.