★ XII ★
He went down the ladder feeling as if he had left the best part of himself behind. He half expected to find his skiff gone. But it was there just as he had left it. Whoever had come and gone that way had had a skiff of his own. Neill reflected that the spy must have been actually hidden in the suite at the moment when he had come back and shut the windows.
Whoever it was, he was gone now. Neill rowed all around the ships and searched up and down the shore. No skiff. He finally tied his skiff in the place where it belonged, and started back across the fields the way he had come, looking over his shoulder at every other step and pausing often to listen. It was a dark night and he could not see more than a yard or two at best.
Coming to the state road, he lay down in the weeds
