Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/256

 Court House. Complaining of fatigue, he went to his room, but the squire sat up late wondering how Imogene was faring, and whether or no she would succeed in rescuing his son, and how in the world she was setting about it. About two o'clock in the morning he detected a smell of burning. He went upstairs. The smell seemed to be coming from the room assigned to Doctor Syn, but there was only the firelight showing under the door, so thinking that the Doctor was asleep, he put his eye to the keyhole. But the Doctor was not asleep. He was dressed in shirt and breeches, and the sleeves of the shirt were turned up. He was standing by the fireplace with a red-hot poker in his hand, looking at a seared mark upon his forearm.

"What the devil's he burning his arm for?" thought the squire. Doctor Syn then began to whistle under his breath; to whistle that old tune the words of which the squire knew so well:

The squire remembered certain words of the captain: Clegg's one tattoo—the picture of a man walking the plank, executed badly upon his forearm. "Good God! Was it possible? No! Ridiculous!"

An uncanny feeling came over the squire, and he went downstairs quietly, without knocking at the Doctor's door, as he had intended—went downstairs to the fire