Limekiller!

No answer. If the man had merely gone out to “ease himself,” as the Bayfolk delicately put it, he would have surely been near enough to answer. No one in the colony engaged in strolling in the bush at night for fun. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered. He felt for and found his matches, struck one, found the lamp, lit it, looked around.

There was still no sign of John Samuel, but what there were signs of was some sort of horrid violence. Hastily he ran his hands over himself, but, despite his fall, despite part of the roof having fallen on him, he found no trace of blood.

All the blood which lay around, then, must have been — could only have been — John Samuel’s blood.

And the screaming and the sounds of something — or some things — heavily thrashing around, they had not been in any dream. The}' had been the sounds of truth.

And as for what else he saw, as he walked, delicate as Agag, around the perimeter of the clearing, he preferred not to speculate.

There was a shotgun and there were shells. He put the shells into the chambers and he stood up, weapon in his hand, all the rest of the night.

“Now, if it took you perhaps less than an hour to reach the shore, and if you left immediately, how is it that you were so long in arriving at Port?” the District Commissioner asked. He asked politely, but he did ask. He asked a great many questions, for, in addition to his other duties, he was the Examining Magistrate.

“Didn’t you observe the wind, D.C.? Ask anyone who was out on the water yesterday. I spent most of the day tacking ”

Corporal Huggin said, softly, from the wheel, “That would be correct, Mr. Blossom.”

They were in the police boat, the George. once, Jack had said to P.C. Ed Huggin, “For George VI, I suppose?” and Ed, toiling over the balkv and antique engine, his clear tan skin smudged with grease, had scowled, and said, “More for bloody George III you ask me. ” At earliest daylight, yesterday, Limekiller, red-eyed and twitching, had briefly cast around in the bush near the camp, decided that, ignorant of bush-lore as he was, having not even a compass, let alone a pair of boots or a snake-bite kit, it would have been insane to attempt any explorations. He found his way along the path, found his skiff still tied up, and had rowed to his boat. Unfavorable winds had destroyed his hope of being of getting back to Port Cockatoo in minimum time: it had been night when he arrived.

The police had listened to his story, had summoned Mr. Florian Blossom, the District Commissioner; all had agreed that “No purpose would be served by attempting anything until next morning.” They had taken his story down, word by word, and by hand — if there was an official stenographer anywhere in the country, Limekiller had yet to hear of it — and by longhand, too; and in their own accustomed style and method, too, so that he was officially recorded as having said things such as: Awakened by loud sounds of distress, I arose and hailed the man known to me as John Samuel. Upon receiving no response, etcetera.

After Jack had signed the statement, and stood up, thinking to return to his boat, the District Commissioner said, “I believe that they can accommodate you with a bed in the Unmarried Police Constables’ Quarters, Mr. Limekiller. Just for the night.”

He looked at the official. A slight shiver ran up and down him. “Do you mean that I am a prisoner?”

“Certainlv not, Mr. Limekiller. No such thing.”

“You know, if I had wanted to, I could have been in Republican waters by now.”

Mr. Blossom's politeness never flagged. “We realise it and we take it into consideration, Mr. Limekiller. But if we are all of us here together it will make an early start in the morning more efficacious.” Anyway, Jack was able to shower, and Ed Huggin loaned him clean clothes. Of course they had not gotten an early start in the morning. Only fishermen and sandboatmen got early starts. Her Majesty’s Government moved at its accustomed pace. In the police launch, besides Limekiller, was P.C. Huggin, D.C. Blossom, a very small and very black and very wiry man called Harlow the Hunter, Police-Sergeant Ruiz, and white-haired Dr. Rafael, the District Medical Officer.

“I wouldn’t have been able to come at all, you know,” he said to Limekiller, “except my assistant has returned from his holidays a day earlier Oh, there is so much to see in this colony! Fascinating, fascinating!”

D.C. Blossom smiled. “Doctor Rafael is a famous antiquarian, you know, Mr. Limekiller. It was he who discovered the grave-stone of my three or four times great-grandsir and — grandy.”

Sounds of surprise and interest — polite on Limekiller’s part, gravestones perhaps not being what he would have most wished to think of — genuine on the part of everyone else, ancestral stones not being numerous in British Hidalgo.