Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/161

 borne a lifelong grudge against his neighbour. The revenge that he had somehow failed to get during his lifetime he accomplished after his death. It was devilish curious."

"It was a devilish trick," explained the Doctor. "The fellow was feigning death to a good purpose—namely, to put his neighbour off his guard. He was not really dead. It would be against all laws of nature—why, of course it would—for a man to arise and walk and commit a foul murder half an hour after his decease! Nonsense, fanciful nonsense!"

"Against the laws of nature, I'll allow," went on the captain, as if he had fully expected that his story would be disbelieved, "but if you'll excuse me saying so, who are you, Doctor Syn, and for the matter of that who am I, to say what the laws of nature are, or to dare to affirm just how far they extend? For my own part, I should prefer to question my own ignorance rather than the laws of nature."

"But in what way do you hint at a connection between this story and our present trouble in the village owing to this murdering-mad seaman?"

"Why, just this," went on the captain deliberately. "When you caught sight of this same murdering-mad seaman—you remember, last night, outside the barn—I noticed that you took cold all of a sudden; you got the shivers."

"Marsh ague—marsh ague," put in the cleric quickly.