Colliver was never found.  Captain Merrydew raised the hue and cry, but the sailor Georgio Rhodojani was never seen again from the moment when his evil face leered in through the window of Lantrig.  A reward was offered, and more than once Polkimbra was excited with the news of his arrest, but it all came to nothing.  Failing his capture, Uncle Loveday was wisely silent on the subject of my father’s Journal and the secret of the Great Ruby.  He had not been idle, however.  After long consultation with Aunt Elizabeth he posted off to Plymouth to gain news of Lucy Railton and her daughter, but without success.  The “Welcome Home” still stood upon the Barbican, but the house was in possession of new tenants, and neither they nor their landlord could tell anything of the Railtons except that they had left suddenly about two months before (that being the date of the wreck of the Belle Fortune) after paying their rent to the end of the Christmas quarter.  The landlord could give no reasons for their departure—­for the house had a fair trade—­but supposed that the husband must have returned from sea and taken them away.  Uncle Loveday, of course, knew better, but on this point held his peace.  The one result of all his inquiries was the certainty that the Railtons had vanished utterly.

So Lantrig, for the preservation of which my father had given his life, was sold to strangers, and I went to live with Aunt and Uncle Loveday at Lizard Town.  The proceeds of the sale (and they were small indeed) Uncle Loveday put carefully by until such time as I should be cast upon the world to seek my fortune.  For twelve uneventful years my aunt fed me, and uncle taught me—­being no mean scholar, especially in Latin, which tongue he took great pains to make me perfect in.  Thomas Loveday was my only companion, and soon became my dear friend.  Poor Tom!  I can see his handsome face before me now as it was in those old days—­the dreamy eyes, the rare smile with its faint suggestion of mockery, the fair curls in which a breeze seemed for ever blowing, the pursed lips that had a habit of saying such wonderful things.  In my dreams—­those few dreams of mine that are happy—­we are always boys together, climbing the cliffs for eggs, or risking our lives in Uncle Loveday’s boat—­always boys together.  Poor Tom!  Poor Tom!

So the unmarked time rolled on, until there came a memorable day in July on which I must touch for a moment.  It was evening.  I was returning with Tom to Lizard Town from Dead Man’s Rock, where we had been basking all the sunny afternoon, Tom reading, and I simply staring vacantly into the heavens and wondering when the time would come that should set me free to unravel the mystery of this ill-omened spot.  Finally, after taking our fill of idleness, we bathed as the sun was setting; and I remember wondering, as I dived off the black ledge, whether beneath me there lay any relic of the Belle Fortune, any fragment that might preserve some record of her end.  I had dived here often enough, but found nothing, nor could I see anything to-day but the clean sand twinkling beneath its veil of blue, though here, as I guessed, must still lie the bones of John Railton.  But I must hasten.  We were returning over the Downs when suddenly I spied a small figure running towards us, and making frantic signals of distress.