Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/61

 "Queen Anne is dead," exclaimed the captain, "because she was not fortunate enough to persuade somebody else to die for her. Now I maintain that this is exactly what Clegg did do."

"Can you let us have the reasons that led you to this theory?" said the cleric, interested.

"I don't see why not," replied the captain. "In the first place, the man hanged at Rye was a short, thickset man, tattooed from head to foot, wearing enormous brass earrings, and his black hair cropped short as a Roundhead's."

"That's an exact description of him," said the parson, "for, as everybody knows, I visited the poor wretch in his prison at Rye, and at his desire wrote out his final and horrible confession."

"Is that so?" said the captain. "Oh, yes, I remember hearing of how he was visited by a parson. I thought it a bit incongruous at the time."

"And so it was," agreed the parson, "for I have never seen a more unrepentant man go to meet his Maker."

"Well, now," went on the captain, his eyes glistening with excitement, "I have it on very good authority that the real Clegg in no way answered this description: he was a weird-looking fellow; thin faced, thin legs, long arms, and, what's more to the point, was never tattooed in his life save once by some unskilled artist who had tried to portray a man walking the plank with a shark waiting below. This picture was executed so poorly