On his way along the river shore, between the village public-house and
the town of Southampton, he had filled his pockets with stones. He knelt
down now by the edge of the pier, and tied all these stones together in
an old cotton pocket-handkerchief.
When he had done this, carefully, compactly, and quickly, like a man
accustomed to do all sorts of strange things, he tied the handkerchief
full of stones to the whipcord that bound the brown-paper parcel, and
dropped both packages into the water.
The spot which he had chosen for this purpose was at the extreme end of
the pier, where the water was deepest.
He had done all this cautiously, taking care to make sure every now and
then that he was unobserved.
And when the parcel had sunk, he watched the widening circle upon the
surface of the water till it died away.
"So much for James Wentworth, and the clothes he wore," he said to
himself as he walked away.
He slept that night at the village inn where he had spent the day, and
the next morning walked into Southampton.
It was a little after nine o'clock when he entered the docks, and the
_Electra_ was visible to the naked eye, steaming through the blue water
under a cloudless summer sky.
CHAPTER VI.
CLEMENT AUSTIN'S DIARY.
"To-day I close a volume of the rough, careless, imperfect record which
I have kept of my life.
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