Now let us go back a little (alas! that the privilege should be peculiar
to the recorder of things done), and see how it came about that Beatrice
Granger was present to retrieve Geoffrey Bingham's dead curlew.

Immediately after the unpleasant idea recorded in the last, or, to be
more accurate, in the first chapter of this comedy, had impressed itself
upon Beatrice's mind, she came to the conclusion that she had seen
enough of the Dog Rocks for one afternoon. Thereon, like a sensible
person, she set herself to quit them in the same way that she had
reached them, namely by means of a canoe. She got into her canoe safely
enough, and paddled a little way out to sea, with a view of returning
to the place whence she came. But the further she went out, and it was
necessary that she should go some way on account of the rocks and the
currents, the denser grew the fog. Sounds came through it indeed, but
she could not clearly distinguish whence they came, till at last, well
as she knew the coast, she grew confused as to whither she was heading.
In this dilemma, while she rested on her paddle staring into the dense
surrounding mist and keeping her grey eyes as wide open as nature would
allow, and that was very wide, she heard the report of a gun behind her
to the right. Arguing to herself that some wild-fowler on the water
must have fired it who would be able to direct her, she turned the
canoe round and paddled swiftly in the direction whence the sound came.
Presently she heard the gun again; both barrels were fired, in there to
the right, but some way off. She paddled on vigorously, but now no more
shots came to guide her, therefore for a while her search was fruitless.
At last, however, she saw something looming through the mist ahead; it
was the Red Rocks, though she did not know it, and she drew near with