pulled down the coat and shirt and looked at his back. As far as he
could see it was scarred as though by a red-hot iron, and the healed
welts were like whipcords on the shrivelled skin. The old man whimpered
yet, but he was growing quieter. Detricand lifted him up, and buttoning
the shirt and straightening the coat again, he said:

"Now, you're to go home and sleep the sleep of the unjust, and you're to
keep the sixth commandment, and you're to tell no more lies. You've made
a shameful mess of your son's life, and you're to die now as soon as you
can without attracting notice. You're to pray for an accident to take
you out of the world: a wind to blow you over a cliff, a roof to fall on
you, a boat to go down with you, a hole in the ground to swallow you up,
a fever or a plague to end you in a day."

He opened the door to let him go; but suddenly catching his arms held him
in a close grip. "Hark!" he said in a mysterious whisper.

There was only the weird sound of the running water through the open
trap-door of the floor. He knew how superstitious was every Jerseyman,
from highest to lowest, and he would work upon that weakness now.

"You hear that water running to the sea?" he said solemnly. "You tried
to kill and drown me to-night. You've heard how when one man has drowned
another an invisible stream follows the murderer wherever he goes, and he
hears it, hour after hour, month after month, year after year, until
suddenly one day it comes on him in a huge flood, and he is found,
whether in the road, or in his bed, or at the table, or in the field,
drowned, and dead?"

The old man shivered violently.