Page:William Le Queux - The Czar's Spy.djvu/135

Rh affair, and recollected my old friend Jack Durnford's words when we stood upon the quarter-deck of the Bulwark and I had related to him the visit of the mysterious yacht. I too had left one effort untried, and I blamed myself for overlooking it. I had not sought of that Bond Street photographer the name and address of the original of that photograph that had been mutilated and destroyed — that girl with the magnificent eyes that had so attracted me.

The afternoon passed, and yet we were not successful. I was faint with hunger and thirst, yet my companion did not once complain. Her energy was marvellous — and yet was she not hunting down a criminal; was she not determined to obtain such evidence as would enable her to speak the truth fearlessly, and with confidence that it would have the effect of convicting the guilty one?

Slowly we toiled on up the picturesque little glen for nearly a mile and a half. Its beauties were extraordinary, and the silence was unbroken save for the musical ripple of the water over the stones. Hidden there in the centre of that great wood, no one had visited it perhaps for years, not even the keepers, for no path led there, and by reason of the tangle of briars and bush it was utterly ungetatable. Indeed, it had ruined our clothes to search there, and as we went on with so many windings and turns we became utterly out of our bearings. We know ourselves to be in the centre of the wood, but that was all.

The sun had set, and the sky above showed the