Did they not tell you that I had
bought the St. Magnus?"
"No! do you really mean that, captain?"
"Certainly I mean it. And you and Jack Paterson can start the
piloting as soon's ye like."
That night, as I sat at Andrew Drever's fireside talking of Jarl
Haffling's talisman, Thora Quendale told us how, when one day after
her illness she was sitting in an armchair, with the stone dangling
by a string from her hand, she fell asleep before the warm fire.
She was awakened by hearing a footstep in the room; it was Tom
Kinlay's. She felt for the stone, but it was gone. Tom had stolen
it. This was how it came into his possession. Evidently it was by a
mere accident that he left it at the top of the cliff, before going
down to the cave, after the death of Colin Lothian.
That night, too, Andrew Drever told me, as he had promised to do,
how he had received news from Copenhagen concerning Thora; how the
insurance money on the ship Undine and on Mr. Quendale's life was
to revert to Thora. This would surely make her a wealthy woman. But
the business connected with this, and the inheritance of her
father's real and personal property, required that Thora should go
to Copenhagen to establish her claims in person at the chancery
courts of Denmark. Mr. Drever was interesting himself specially on
her account in the capacity of a guardian, and he was soon to
accompany her to Denmark and leave her there, probably for several
years.
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