as he asked with manifest curiosity but without any apparent suspicion in
his voice, "And how did you get here?"

Yet when I looked up from my pipe-filling to answer him I could almost
swear that he had done something to make his features less
visible--pulled his sou'wester further down and sunk his chin into the
high collar of his oilskin, it certainly seemed to me. As I had gathered
a very insufficient impression of him before, this was a little
provoking. Still, I told myself that our acquaintance was only beginning.
How to ripen it--that was the problem. I tried the effect of merely
winking and saying with a cool, knowing air:

"The usual way. Do you have to ask?"

He looked sharply up and down the rocks and out to sea and I saw
instantly what was in his mind.

"Impossible! There was no signal. I have been looking out all the
time," said he.

I merely laughed.

"How else do you think I could have come?"

"So!" he murmured again, and then he asked a curious question.

"Do you know if there are many sheep on this island?"

So I had landed on an island! That was the first and chief deduction
I drew from this enquiry. The second was that the man's English must