Now let us go back a little (alas! that the privilege should be peculiar to the recorder of things done), and see how it came about that Beatrice Granger was present to retrieve Geoffrey Bingham’s dead curlew.

Immediately after the unpleasant idea recorded in the last, or, to be more accurate, in the first chapter of this comedy, had impressed itself upon Beatrice’s mind, she came to the conclusion that she had seen enough of the Dog Rocks for one afternoon.  Thereon, like a sensible person, she set herself to quit them in the same way that she had reached them, namely by means of a canoe.  She got into her canoe safely enough, and paddled a little way out to sea, with a view of returning to the place whence she came.  But the further she went out, and it was necessary that she should go some way on account of the rocks and the currents, the denser grew the fog.  Sounds came through it indeed, but she could not clearly distinguish whence they came, till at last, well as she knew the coast, she grew confused as to whither she was heading.  In this dilemma, while she rested on her paddle staring into the dense surrounding mist and keeping her grey eyes as wide open as nature would allow, and that was very wide, she heard the report of a gun behind her to the right.  Arguing to herself that some wild-fowler on the water must have fired it who would be able to direct her, she turned the canoe round and paddled swiftly in the direction whence the sound came.  Presently she heard the gun again; both barrels were fired, in there to the right, but some way off.  She paddled on vigorously, but now no more shots came to guide her, therefore for a while her search was fruitless.  At last, however, she saw something looming through the mist ahead; it was the Red Rocks, though she did not know it, and she drew near with caution till Geoffrey’s shout broke upon her ears.

She picked up the dead bird and paddled towards the dim figure who was evidently wrestling with something, she could not see what.

“Here is the curlew, sir,” she said.

“Oh, thank you,” answered the figure on the rock.  “I am infinitely obliged to you.  I was just going to swim for it, I can’t bear losing my game.  It seems so cruel to shoot birds for nothing.”

“I dare say that you will not make much use of it now that you have got it,” said the gentle voice in the canoe.  “Curlew are not very good eating.”

“That is scarcely the point,” replied the Crusoe on the rock.  “The point is to bring them home. Apres cela——­”

“The birdstuffer?” said the voice.

“No,” answered Crusoe, “the cook——­”

A laugh came back from the canoe—­and then a question.

“Pray, Mr. Bingham, can you tell me where I am?  I have quite lost my reckoning in the mist.”

He started.  How did this mysterious young lady in a boat know his name?

“You are at the Red Rocks; there is the bell, that grey thing, Miss—­Miss——­”