The Man from the Clouds | Page 6

Again he looked at me for a moment, his face now almost completely
hidden by the peak of his sou'wester. If by any chance he were still
doubting me the best thing seemed to be a touch of candour and an
appeal he could scarcely resist.
"See here," I said, lowering my voice, "I want to stop in this island
to-night. In fact those are my orders. Now where can you find me a safe
place?"
He lowered his voice too. In fact he seemed to reciprocate my
confidence very satisfactorily.

"We must be very careful. I must see that the coast is clear first. Just
you sit and wait here for ten minutes. I will be back."
He nodded at me to enforce his injunctions and added as he turned
away,
"Keep sitting down. Mind that!"
I sat down, finished filling my pipe, lit it, and waited. And as I waited I
frankly confess I fairly hugged myself. Never before was there such a
bit of luck, thought I. That that vagabond balloon should actually bring
its passenger back to his native land instead of dropping him in the sea
or landing him in Germany was fortunate almost beyond belief, but that
he should then stumble on a German spy and actually convince the man
that he was a confederate and lead him straight into the net already
spreading for him, surely showed that after a considerable run of ill
luck (and, I must confess, ill guidance), the passenger had suddenly
become Fortune's prime favourite. Several very eligible and
commodious castles were constructed in the night air by that lonely
shore as I sat and smoked.
And then I heard a cautious but distinct whistle, and up I jumped and
looked all round me. There was no one to be seen, but the sound came
from the right--the way I had come, and I set off through the thickening
dusk in that direction. But the odd thing was that I walked considerably
further than the sound of the whistle could have carried and never a
sign of human being or of house did I see--nothing but that desolate
grassy sea-board and the faintly gleaming waters.
I stopped and began to wonder, and then I heard the whistle again. It
was still ahead of me, so on I walked and once more the same thing
occurred. This time I paused for at least another ten minutes, but
nobody appeared and nothing whatever happened. There I was, utterly
alone once more, with the land growing black and the sea dim and not a
sound now even from the sea gulls.

III
ALONE AGAIN
"The man has suspected me!" I said to myself.
It was an unpleasant conclusion, but the more carefully I thought over
every little circumstance the more certain I felt it was the true one. To
begin with, there was the way in which he kept his face concealed after
the first few sentences we exchanged. Then there was that curious
question about the sheep. It must have been a password--I saw that now,
and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had
no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with
some equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was
using a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I
had missed the point absolutely.
Finally there was his conduct in slipping away and leaving me stranded
like this. Surely it was the very last trick to play on an accomplice. In
fact it settled the matter. But why then did he whistle--and, moreover,
whistle twice?
For a few minutes I was utterly puzzled, and then an explanation
flashed upon me. He wished to lead me in this particular direction! And
why? Evidently because he himself was living or hiding in the other. I
tried to put myself in his shoes and think what I would do myself, and
if I had had the wit to think of it, that would obviously be the soundest
thing. So obvious did it seem to me that I decided to set to work on that
assumption.
First of all I walked a little further to see if I could test this theory, and
in a minute or two I saw dimly ahead of me houses near the beach. I
stopped and thought again. Could it possibly be that this was the refuge
he was providing and that he did not suspect me after all?
"In that case," I said to myself, "would any man in his senses use such a
vague and misleading method of conducting a friend, especially when a
mistake might be--and probably would be--fatal to his schemes?

Obviously not!"
On the