Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/107

Rh about my customary duties until full daybreak, when I paid a visit to the strong room, to see how the prisoner had slept.

I found him sitting up in bed and nursing his leg, the wound of which appeared red and angry at the edges. I sent, therefore, for a fomentation, and while applying it thought no harm to tell him the report from the Cove. To my astonishment it threw him into a transport, though whether of rage or horror I could not at first tell. But he jerked his leg from my grasp, and beating the straw with both fists he cried out— "I knew it! I knew it would be so! She is a witch—a daughter of Satan, or his leman! It is her doing, I tell you. It is she who has killed that fool Affonzo. She is a witch!" He fell back on the straw, his strength spent, but still beat weakly with his fists, gasping "Witch—witch!"

"Hush!" said I. "You are light-headed with your hurt. Lie quiet and let me tend it."

"As for my hurt," he answered, "your tending it will do no good. The poison of that hound of hell is in me, and nothing for me but to say my prayers. But listen you"—here he sat up again and plucked me by the shoulder as I bent over his leg. "The freight is not gone, and good reason for why: it was never landed!"

"Hey?" said I, incredulous.

"It was never landed. The men toiled as she ordered—Lord, how they toiled! Without