But the odd thing was that I walked considerably
further than the sound of the whistle could have carried and never a sign
of human being or of house did I see--nothing but that desolate grassy
sea-board and the faintly gleaming waters.
I stopped and began to wonder, and then I heard the whistle again. It was
still ahead of me, so on I walked and once more the same thing occurred.
This time I paused for at least another ten minutes, but nobody appeared
and nothing whatever happened. There I was, utterly alone once more, with
the land growing black and the sea dim and not a sound now even from the
sea gulls.
III
ALONE AGAIN
"The man has suspected me!" I said to myself.
It was an unpleasant conclusion, but the more carefully I thought over
every little circumstance the more certain I felt it was the true one. To
begin with, there was the way in which he kept his face concealed after
the first few sentences we exchanged. Then there was that curious
question about the sheep. It must have been a password--I saw that now,
and I could have kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. Of course I had
no idea of the proper answer, but I might at least have replied with some
equally cryptic sentence and tried to bluff him into thinking I was using
a different code. As it was, I had made it perfectly obvious that I had
missed the point absolutely.
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