I swore it.

“Say, ‘Strike me blind if I have!’”

I repeated the words after him, and, with a hurried look around, he set off running again towards the rock.  I had much ado to keep from tumbling, and even from crying aloud with pain, so tight was his grip.  Fast as we went, the man’s teeth chattered and his limbs shook; his wet clothes flapped and fluttered in the cold morning breeze; his face was drawn and pinched with exhaustion, but he never slackened his pace until we reached Dead Man’s Rock.  Here he stopped and looked around again.

“Is there any place to hide in hereabouts?” he suddenly asked.

The oddness of the question took me aback:  and, indeed, the whole conduct of the man was so strange that I was heartily frightened, and longed greatly to run away.  There was no help for it, however, so I made shift to answer—­

“There is a nice cave in Ready-Money Cove, which is the next cove to this, sir.  The smugglers used to use it because it was hidden so, but—­”

I suppose my eyes told him that I was wondering why he should want to hide, for he broke in again—­

“Well, show me this cap.  Out on the face of this rock, you say—­ what’s the name?  Dead Man’s Rock, eh?  Well, it’s an ugly name enough, and an ugly rock enough!” he added, with a shiver.

I climbed up the rock, and he after me, until we gained the ledge where I had stood before.  I looked down.  The cap was still lying there, and the tide had ebbed still further.

My companion looked for a moment, then, with a short cry, scrambled quickly down and picked it up.  To me it had looked like any ordinary sailor’s cap, but he examined it, fingered it, and pulled it about, muttering all the time, so that I imagined it must be his own, though at a loss to know why he made so much of recovering it.  At last he climbed up again, holding it in his hands, and still muttering to himself—­

“His cap, sure enough; nothing in it, though.  But he was much too clever a devil.  However, he’s gone right enough; I knew he must, and this proves it, curse him!  Well, I’ll wear it.  He’s not left behind as much as he thought, but mad enough he’d be to think I was his heir.  I’ll wear it for old acquaintance’ sake.  Sit down, boy,” he said aloud to me; “we’re safe here, and can’t be seen.  I want to talk with you.”

The rocky ledge on which we stood was about seven feet long and three or four in breadth.  On one side of it ran down the path by which we had ascended; the other end broke off with a sheer descent into the sea of some forty feet in the present state of the tide.  High above us rose an unscaleable cliff; at our feet lay a short descent to the ledge on which the cap had rested, and after that another precipice.  It was not a pleasant position in which to be left alone with this strange companion, but I was helpless, and perhaps the trace of weakness and a something not altogether evil in his face, gave me some courage.  Little enough it was, however, and in mere desperation I sat down on the side by the path.  My companion flung himself down on the other side, with his legs dangling over the ledge, and so sat for a minute or two watching the sea.