association particularly odious to a sailor by its idea of confinement
and narrowness; yes, even when he has given up the hope of being buried
at sea; about the last hope a sailor gives up consciously after he has
been, as it does happen, decoyed by some chance into the toils of the
land. A strong grave-like sniff. The ditch by the side of the road must
have been freshly dug in front of the cottage.

Once clear of the garden Fyne gathered way like a racing cutter. What
was a mile to him--or twenty miles? You think he might have gone
shrinkingly on such an errand. But not a bit of it. The force of
pedestrian genius I suppose. I raced by his side in a mood of profound
self-derision, and infinitely vexed with that minx. Because dead or
alive I thought of her as a minx . . ."

I smiled incredulously at Marlow's ferocity; but Marlow pausing with a
whimsically retrospective air, never flinched.

"Yes, yes. Even dead. And now you are shocked. You see, you are such a
chivalrous masculine beggar. But there is enough of the woman in my
nature to free my judgment of women from glamorous reticency. And then,
why should I upset myself? A woman is not necessarily either a doll or
an angel to me. She is a human being, very much like myself. And I have
come across too many dead souls lying so to speak at the foot of high
unscaleable places for a merely possible dead body at the bottom of a
quarry to strike my sincerity dumb.

The cliff-like face of the quarry looked forbiddingly impressive. I will
admit that Fyne and I hung back for a moment before we made a plunge off
the road into the bushes growing in a broad space at the foot of the
towering limestone wall. These bushes were heavy with dew. There were