Kinraid threw his arms out of bed with impatience at all this plausible talk, which was even more irritating than the fact that Hepburn was still undiscovered.

’The man was no friend of mine; I was like to have killed him when last I saw him.  He was a shopkeeper in a country town in England.  I had seen little enough of him; but enough to make me able to swear to him anywhere, even in a marine’s uniform, and in this sweltering country.’

’Faces once seen, especially in excitement, are apt to return upon the memory in cases of fever,’ quoth the doctor, sententiously.

The attendant sailor, reinstalled to some complacency by the failure of another in the search in which he himself had been unsuccessful, now put in his explanation.

‘Maybe it was a spirit.  It’s not th’ first time as I’ve heared of a spirit coming upon earth to save a man’s life i’ time o’ need.  My father had an uncle, a west-country grazier.  He was a-coming over Dartmoor in Devonshire one moonlight night with a power o’ money as he’d got for his sheep at t’ fair.  It were stowed i’ leather bags under th’ seat o’ th’ gig.  It were a rough kind o’ road, both as a road and in character, for there’d been many robberies there of late, and th’ great rocks stood convenient for hiding-places.  All at once father’s uncle feels as if some one were sitting beside him on th’ empty seat; and he turns his head and looks, and there he sees his brother sitting—­his brother as had been dead twelve year and more.  So he turns his head back again, eyes right, and never say a word, but wonders what it all means.  All of a sudden two fellows come out upo’ th’ white road from some black shadow, and they looked, and they let th’ gig go past, father’s uncle driving hard, I’ll warrant him.  But for all that he heard one say to t’ other, “By——­, there’s two on ’em!” Straight on he drove faster than ever, till he saw th’ far lights of some town or other.  I forget its name, though I’ve heared it many a time; and then he drew a long breath, and turned his head to look at his brother, and ask him how he’d managed to come out of his grave i’ Barum churchyard, and th’ seat was as empty as it had been when he set out; and then he knew that it were a spirit come to help him against th’ men who thought to rob him, and would likely enough ha’ murdered him.’

Kinraid had kept quiet through this story.  But when the sailor began to draw the moral, and to say, ’And I think I may make bold to say, sir, as th’ marine who carried you out o’ th’ Frenchy’s gun-shot was just a spirit come to help you,’ he exclaimed impatiently, swearing a great oath as he did so, ’It was no spirit, I tell you; and I was in my full senses.  It was a man named Philip Hepburn.  He said words to me, or over me, as none but himself would have said.  Yet we hated each other like poison; and I can’t make out why he should be there and putting himself in danger to save me.  But so it was; and as you can’t find him, let me hear no more of your nonsense.  It was him, and not my fancy, doctor.  It was flesh and blood, and not a spirit, Jack.  So get along with you, and leave me quiet.’