"Somebody
might come in and throttle him some night! No one would be here to
stop it. I must speak to Simpson, yes, speak to Simpson--that is,
if he is ever sober enough to listen. Poor old soldier! He will
have his drink!"
There was a singular improvised bivouac going on in the ruined martello
tower where Professor Alaric Hobbs had set up his instruments to
take some interesting observations upon an occultation of Venus.
A coast-guard station at Bouley Bay and St. Catherine's Head
rendered the further occupancy of the old martello tower at Rozel
Head unnecessary, and only a few rats and bats now resented Alaric
Hobbs' sequestration of the second story. He meditated a comparative
memoir upon the "Tides of Fundy Bay, and the Channel Islands," with
a treatise upon "Contracted Ocean Surface Currents." Astronomer,
hydrog-rapher, geologist, and all-round savant, his lank form was
already familiar to the Channel Islanders. And, like the wind, he
veered around "where he listed."
"Great Jupiter aid us!" cried the son of Minerva, "Venus is
unpropitious to-night. All my trouble is vain." For when the black
storm broke upon the little channel islet, Alaric Hobbs saw no way
of a comfortable return to the Royal Victoria at St. Heliers. "I
might leave all here and claim old Fraser's hospitality for a night.
No one can get up to the second story," mused Hobbes, who now
regretted having ordered the fly to come for him only at day-break.
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