Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/155

 "One thing, though whether I dreamt that or not I couldn't swear to, but it seemed that when I come to something like myself the dawn was breaking, for the room was filled with a gray light, when suddenly something came into the room and closed those shutters. Then I fell off into another sort of sleep and dreamt that people were trying to wake me up by banging on the shutters, and then at last—hours after it, it seemed—you came, sir, and freed me."

"One moment," said the captain; "this something that closed the shutters—a man?"

"Yes, like a man."

"Like what man?"

"Well, sir, it was like one of them devils that I'd seen leaving the room that night. It also reminded me—yes, it reminded me of that gentleman there, a-standing at that door—that sexton; in fact, now I comes to think of it and look at him, I remembers dreaming a lot about him in the night."

"Thank you kindly," said Mr. Mipps, who was indeed listening to the narrative from the door, "but don't trouble to drag me into it, mate. I gives you my word that we were all as merry as crickets till you King's men come nigh the place, and as for talks of demons and such like, well, there's always gossip of such, of course, but since you fellows come aboard, the talk's been of nothing else; and murders, too. Why, we'd never heard of murders, except, of course, in church