I despaired of finding the way by these unintelligible sailing-orders; but just at that moment, as luck would have it, another cyclist flew past—­the first soul I had seen on the road that morning.  He was a man with the loose-knit air of a shop assistant, badly got up in a rather loud and obtrusive tourist suit of brown homespun, with baggy knickerbockers and thin thread stockings.  I judged him a gentleman on the cheap at sight.  “Very Stylish; this Suit Complete, only thirty-seven and sixpence!” The landlady glanced out at him with a friendly nod.  He turned and smiled at her, but did not see me; for I stood in the shade behind the half-open door.  He had a short black moustache and a not unpleasing, careless face.  His features, I thought, were better than his garments.

However, the stranger did not interest me just then I was far too full of more important matters.  “Why don’t ‘ee taake an’ vollow thik ther gen’leman, zur?” the landlady said, pointing one large red hand after him.  “Ur do go down to Urd Gap to zwim every marnin’.  Mr. Jan Smith, o’ Oxford, they do call un.  ’Ee can’t go wrong if ‘ee do vollow un to the Gap.  Ur’s lodgin’ up to wold Varmer Moore’s, an’ ur’s that vond o’ the zay, the vishermen do tell me, as wasn’t never any gen’leman like un.”

I tossed off my ginger-beer, jumped on to my machine, and followed the retreating brown back of Mr. John Smith, of Oxford—­surely a most non-committing name—­round sharp corners and over rutty lanes, tire-deep in mud, across the rusty-red moor, till, all at once, at a turn, a gap of stormy sea appeared wedge-shape between two shelving rock-walls.

It was a lonely spot.  Rocks hemmed it in; big breakers walled it.  The sou’-wester roared through the gap.  I rode down among loose stones and water-worn channels in the solid grit very carefully.  But the man in brown had torn over the wild path with reckless haste, zigzagging madly, and was now on the little three-cornered patch of beach, undressing himself with a sort of careless glee, and flinging his clothes down anyhow on the shingle beside him.  Something about the, action caught my eye.  That movement of the arm!  It was not—­it could not be—­no, no, not Hugo!

A very ordinary person; and Le Geyt bore the stamp of a born gentleman.

He stood up bare at last.  He flung out his arms, as if to welcome the boisterous wind to his naked bosom.  Then, with a sudden burst of recognition, the man stood revealed.  We had bathed together a hundred times in London and elsewhere.  The face, the clad figure, the dress, all were different.  But the body—­the actual frame and make of the man—­the well-knit limbs, the splendid trunk—­no disguise could alter.  It was Le Geyt himself—­big, powerful, vigorous.

That ill-made suit, those baggy knickerbockers, the slouched cap, the thin thread stockings, had only distorted and hidden his figure.  Now that I saw him as he was, he came out the same bold and manly form as ever.