At another I noticed a farm close by, and from this an
assailant could easily have slipped down to the beach and run back again.
At a third the configuration of the rocks was such that it would have
been simple for him to have waited below the bank till he heard us
coming, made a noise to bring me down, and then gone up above without
exposing himself against the sky. In fact one could draw no definite
conclusions at all.
Besides, there was the very distasteful alternative (and the more
plausible it seemed, the more distasteful it grew) that there might well
have been two people in it; one--who might have followed me, the stone
thrower; and the other--who might, for instance, have been patrolling the
shore from the opposite direction, the attacker.
Suspicious as I had felt at the moment, I shrank from this alternative,
and in justification I asked myself,
"Why didn't she use her pistol, and be done with it?"
But, on the other hand, it was a most extraordinary coincidence that her
father should have passed that spot certainly within three or four
minutes previously, and that he should have seen no sign of my enemy. So
far as I could remember the length of time I had spent groping among the
rocks, it was just possible for Mr. Rendall to pass by and for the other
man then to begin his work of decoying me, but certainly it was an
unpleasant coincidence.
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