Chapter
8
The Coming of the CutterNEVER FELT QUITE THE same to our lodger after that little business at the Peel Castle. It was always in my mind that he was holding a secret from me — indeed, that he was all a secret together, seeing that he always hung a veil over his past. And when by chance that veil was for an instant whisked away, we always caught just a glimpse of something bloody and violent and dreadful upon the other side. The very look of his body was terrible. I bathed with him once in the summer, and I saw then that he was haggled with wounds all over. Besides seven or eight scars and slashes, his ribs on one side were all twisted out of shape, and a part of one of his calves had been torn away. He laughed in his merry way when he saw my face of wonder.
"Cossacks! Cossacks!
