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Title: A Warning to the Curious

Date of first publication: 1931
Author: M. R. James (1862-1936)
Date first posted: March 13 2013
Date last updated: March 13 2013
Faded Page eBook #20130330

This eBook was produced by: Delphine Lettau, Mary Meehan, Mark Akrigg
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS

By M. R. JAMES

[Transcriber's Note: Originally published in THE COLLECTED GHOST

STORIES of M. R. JAMES, 1931.]

The place on the east coast which the reader is asked to consider is
Seaburgh. It is not very different now from what I remember it to have
been when I was a child. Marshes intersected by dykes to the south,
recalling the early chapters of _Great Expectations_; flat fields to the
north, merging into heath; heath, fir woods, and, above all, gorse,
inland. A long sea-front and a street: behind that a spacious church of
flint, with a broad, solid western tower and a peal of six bells. How
well I remember their sound on a hot Sunday in August, as our party went
slowly up the white, dusty slope of road towards them, for the church
stands at the top of a short, steep incline. They rang with a flat
clacking sort of sound on those hot days, but when the air was softer
they were mellower too. The railway ran down to its little terminus
farther along the same road. There was a gay white windmill just before
you came to the station, and another down near the shingle at the south
end of the town, and yet others on higher ground to the north. There
were cottages of bright red brick with slate roofs ... but why do I
encumber you with these commonplace details? The fact is that they come
crowding to the point of the pencil when it begins to write of
Seaburgh. I should like to be sure that I had allowed the right ones to
get on to the paper. But I forgot. I have not quite done with the
word-painting business yet.
Walk away from the sea and the town, pass the station, and turn up the
road on the right. It is a sandy road, parallel with the railway, and if
you follow it, it climbs to somewhat higher ground. On your left (you
are now going northward) is heath, on your right (the side towards the
sea) is a belt of old firs, wind-beaten, thick at the top, with the
slope that old seaside trees have; seen on the skyline from the train
they would tell you in an instant, if you did not know it, that you were
approaching a windy coast. Well, at the top of my little hill, a line of
these firs strikes out and runs towards the sea, for there is a ridge
that goes that way; and the ridge ends in a rather well-defined mound
commanding the level fields of rough grass, and a little knot of fir
trees crowns it. And here you may sit on a hot spring day, very well
content to look at blue sea, white windmills, red cottages, bright green
grass, church tower, and distant martello tower on the south.

As I have said, I began to know Seaburgh as a child; but a gap of a good

many years separates my early knowledge from that which is more recent.
Still it keeps its place in my affections, and any tales of it that I
pick up have an interest for me. One such tale is this: it came to me in
a place very remote from Seaburgh, and quite accidentally, from a man
whom I had been able to oblige--enough in his opinion to justify his
making me his confidant to this extent.

* * * * *

I know all that country more or less (he said). I used to go to

Seaburgh pretty regularly for golf in the spring. I generally put
up at the "Bear," with a friend--Henry Long it was, you knew him
perhaps--("Slightly," I said) and we used to take a sitting-room and be
very happy there. Since he died I haven't cared to go there. And I don't
know that I should anyhow after the particular thing that happened on
our last visit.

It was in April, 19--, we were there, and by some chance we were almost
the only people in the hotel. So the ordinary public rooms were
practically empty, and we were the more surprised when, after dinner,
our sitting-room door opened, and a young man put his head in. We were
aware of this young man. He was rather a rabbity anæmic subject--light
hair and light eyes--but not unpleasing. So when he said: "I beg your
pardon, is this a private room?" we did not growl and say: "Yes, it is,"
but Long said, or I did--no matter which: "Please come in." "Oh, may I?"
he said, and seemed relieved. Of course it was obvious that he wanted
company; and as he was a reasonable kind of person--not the sort to
bestow his whole family history on you--we urged him to make himself at
home. "I dare say you find the other rooms rather bleak," I said. Yes,
he did: but it was really too good of us, and so on. That being got
over, he made some pretence of reading a book. Long was playing
Patience, I was writing. It became plain to me after a few minutes that
this visitor of ours was in rather a state of fidgets or nerves, which
communicated itself to me, and so I put away my writing and turned to at
engaging him in talk.

After some remarks, which I forget, he became rather confidential.

"You'll think it very odd of me" (this was the sort of way he began),
"but the fact is I've had something of a shock." Well, I recommended a
drink of some cheering kind, and we had it. The waiter coming in made an
interruption (and I thought our young man seemed very jumpy when the
door opened), but after a while he got back to his woes again. There was
nobody he knew in the place, and he did happen to know who we both were
(it turned out there was some common acquaintance in town), and really
he did want a word of advice, if we didn't mind. Of course we both said:
"By all means," or "Not at all," and Long put away his cards. And we
settled down to hear what his difficulty was.

"It began," he said, "more than a week ago, when I bicycled over to
Froston, only about five or six miles, to see the church; I'm very much
interested, in architecture, and it's got one of those pretty porches
with niches and shields. I took a photograph of it, and then an old man
who was tidying up in the churchyard came and asked if I'd care to look
into the church. I said yes, and he produced a key and let me in. There
wasn't much inside, but I told him it was a nice little church, and he
kept it very clean, 'but,' I said, 'the porch is the best part of it.'
We were just outside the porch then, and he said, 'Ah, yes, that is a
nice porch; and do you know, sir, what's the meanin' of that coat of
arms there?'

"It was the one with the three crowns, and though I'm not much of a
herald, I was able to say yes, I thought it was the old arms of the
kingdom of East Anglia.

"'That's right, sir,' he said, 'and do you know the meanin' of them
three crowns that's on it?'

"I said I'd no doubt it was known, but I couldn't recollect to have
heard it myself.

"'Well, then,' he said, 'for all you're a scholard, I can tell you
something you don't know. Them's the three 'oly crowns what was buried
in the ground near by the coast to keep the Germans from landing--ah, I
can see you don't believe that. But I tell you, if it hadn't have been
for one of them 'oly crowns bein' there still, them Germans would a
landed here time and again, they would. Landed with their ships, and
killed man, woman and child in their beds. Now then, that's the truth
what I'm telling you, that is; and if you don't believe me, you ast the
rector. There he comes: you ast him, I says.'

"I looked round, and there was the rector, a nice-looking old man,
coming up the path; and before I could begin assuring my old man, who
was getting quite excited, that I didn't disbelieve him, the rector
struck in, and said: 'What's all this about, John? Good day to you, sir.
Have you been looking at our little church?'

"So then there was a little talk which allowed the old man to calm down,
and then the rector asked him again what was the matter.

"'Oh,' he said, 'it warn't nothink, only I was telling this gentleman
he'd ought to ast you about them 'oly crowns.'

"'Ah, yes, to be sure,' said the rector, 'that's a very curious matter,
isn't it? But I don't know whether the gentleman is interested in our
old stories, eh?'

"'Oh, he'll be interested fast enough,' says the old man, 'he'll put his
confidence in what you tells him, sir; why, you known William Ager
yourself, father and son too.'

"Then I put in a word to say how much I should like to hear all about
it, and before many minutes I was walking up the village street with the
rector, who had one or two words to say to parishioners, and then to the
rectory, where he took me into his study. He had made out, on the way,
that I really was capable of taking an intelligent interest in a piece
of folk-lore, and not quite the ordinary tripper. So he was very willing
to talk, and it is rather surprising to me that the particular legend he
told me has not made its way into print before. His account of it was
this: 'There has always been a belief in these parts in the three holy
crowns. The old people say they were buried in different places near the
coast to keep off the Danes or the French or the Germans. And they say
that one of the three was dug up a long time ago, and another has
disappeared by the encroaching of the sea, and one's still left doing
its work, keeping off invaders. Well, now, if you have read the ordinary
guides and histories of this county, you will remember perhaps that in
1687 a crown, which was said to be the crown of Redwald, King of the
East Angles, was dug up at Rendlesham, and alas! alas! melted down
before it was even properly described or drawn. Well, Rendlesham isn't
on the coast, but it isn't so very far inland, and it's on a very
important line of access. And I believe that is the crown which the
people mean when they say that one has been dug up. Then on the south
you don't want me to tell you where there was a Saxon royal palace which
is now under the sea, eh? Well, there was the second crown, I take it.
And up beyond these two, they say, lies the third.'

"'Do they say where it is?' of course I asked.

"He said, 'Yes, indeed, they do, but they don't tell,' and his manner
did not encourage me to put the obvious question. Instead of that I
waited a moment, and said: 'What did the old man mean when he said you
knew William Ager, as if that had something to do with the crowns?'

"'To be sure,' he said, 'now that's another curious story. These

Agers--it's a very old name in these parts, but I can't find that they
were ever people of quality or big owners--these Agers say, or said,
that their branch of the family were the guardians of the last crown. A
certain old Nathaniel Ager was the first one I knew--I was born and
brought up quite near here--and he, I believe, camped out at the place
during the whole of the war of 1870. William, his son, did the same, I
know, during the South African War. And young William, _his_ son, who
has only died fairly recently, took lodgings at the cottage nearest the
spot, and I've no doubt hastened his end, for he was a consumptive, by
exposure and night watching. And he was the last of that branch. It was
a dreadful grief to him to think that he was the last, but he could do
nothing, the only relations at all near to him were in the colonies. I
wrote letters for him to them imploring them to come over on business
very important to the family, but there has been no answer. So the last
of the holy crowns, if it's there, has no guardian now.'

"That was what the rector told me, and you can fancy how interesting I
found it. The only thing I could think of when I left him was how to hit
upon the spot where the crown was supposed to be. I wish I'd left it
alone.

"But there was a sort of fate in it, for as I bicycled back past the
churchyard wall my eye caught a fairly new gravestone, and on it was the
name of William Ager. Of course I got off and read it. It said 'of this
parish, died at Seaburgh, 19--, aged 28.' There it was, you see. A
little judicious questioning in the right place, and I should at least
find the cottage nearest the spot. Only I didn't quite know what was the
right place to begin my questioning at. Again there was fate: it took me
to the curiosity-shop down that way--you know--and I turned over some
old books, and, if you please, one was a prayer-book of 1740 odd, in a
rather handsome binding--I'll just go and get it, it's in my room."

He left us in a state of some surprise, but we had hardly time to

exchange any remarks when he was back, panting, and handed us the book
opened at the fly-leaf, on which was, in a straggly hand:

"Nathaniel Ager is my name and England is my nation,

Seaburgh is my dwelling-place and Christ is my Salvation,
When I am dead and in my Grave, and all my bones are rotton,
I hope the Lord will think on me when I am quite forgotton."

This poem was dated 1754, and there were many more entries of Agers,
Nathaniel, Frederick, William, and so on, ending with William, 19--.

"You see," he said, "anybody would call it the greatest bit of luck. _I_
did, but I don't now. Of course I asked the shopman about William Ager,
and of course he happened to remember that he lodged in a cottage in
the North Field and died there. This was just chalking the road for me.
I knew which the cottage must be: there is only one sizable one about
there. The next thing was to scrape some sort of acquaintance with the
people, and I took a walk that way at once. A dog did the business for
me: he made at me so fiercely that they had to run out and beat him off,
and then naturally begged my pardon, and we got into talk. I had only to
bring up Ager's name, and pretend I knew, or thought I knew something of
him, and then the woman said how sad it was him dying so young, and she
was sure it came of him spending the night out of doors in the cold
weather. Then I had to say: 'Did he go out on the sea at night?' and she
said: 'Oh, no, it was on the hillock yonder with the trees on it.' And
there I was.

"I know something about digging in these barrows: I've opened many of
them in the down country. But that was with owner's leave, and in broad
daylight and with men to help. I had to prospect very carefully here
before I put a spade in: I couldn't trench across the mound, and with
those old firs growing there I knew there would be awkward tree roots.
Still the soil was very light and sandy and easy, and there was a rabbit
hole or so that might be developed into a sort of tunnel. The going out
and coming back at odd hours to the hotel was going to be the awkward
part. When I made up my mind about the way to excavate I told the
people that I was called away for a night, and I spent it out there. I
made my tunnel: I won't bore you with the details of how I supported it
and filled it in when I'd done, but the main thing is that I got the
crown."

Naturally we both broke out into exclamations of surprise and interest.

I for one had long known about the finding of the crown at Rendlesham
and had often lamented its fate. No one has ever seen an Anglo-Saxon
crown--at least no one had. But our man gazed at us with a rueful eye.
"Yes," he said, "and the worst of it is I don't know how to put it
back."

"Put it back?" we cried out. "Why, my dear sir, you've made one of the
most exciting finds ever heard of in this country. Of course it ought to
go to the Jewel House at the Tower. What's your difficulty? If you're
thinking about the owner of the land, and treasure-trove, and all that,
we can certainly help you through. Nobody's going to make a fuss about
technicalities in a case of this kind."

Probably more was said, but all he did was to put his face in his hands,
and mutter: "I don't know how to put it back."

At last Long said: "You'll forgive me, I hope, if I seem impertinent,

but are you _quite_ sure you've got it?" I was wanting to ask much the
same question myself, for of course the story did seem a lunatic's dream
when one thought over it. But I hadn't quite dared to say what might
hurt the poor young man's feelings. However, he took it quite
calmly--really, with the calm of despair, you might say. He sat up and
said: "Oh, yes, there's no doubt of that: I have it here, in my room,
locked up in my bag. You can come and look at it if you like: I won't
offer to bring it here."

We were not likely to let the chance slip. We went with him; his room
was only a few doors off. The boots was just collecting shoes in the
passage: or so we thought: afterwards we were not sure. Our visitor--his
name was Paxton--was in a worse state of shivers than before, and went
hurriedly into the room, and beckoned us after him, turned on the light,
and shut the door carefully. Then he unlocked his kit-bag, and produced
a bundle of clean pocket-handkerchiefs in which something was wrapped,
laid it on the bed, and undid it. I can now say I _have_ seen an actual
Anglo-Saxon crown. It was of silver--as the Rendlesham one is always
said to have been--it was set with some gems, mostly antique intaglios
and cameos, and was of rather plain, almost rough workmanship. In fact,
it was like those you see on the coins and in the manuscripts. I found
no reason to think it was later than the ninth century. I was intensely
interested, of course, and I wanted to turn it over in my hands, but
Paxton prevented me. "Don't _you_ touch it," he said, "I'll do that."
And with a sigh that was, I declare to you, dreadful to hear, he took it
up and turned it about so that we could see every part of it. "Seen
enough?" he said at last, and we nodded. He wrapped it up and locked it
in his bag, and stood looking at us dumbly. "Come back to our room,"
Long said, "and tell us what the trouble is." He thanked us, and said:
"Will you go first and see if--if the coast is clear?" That wasn't very
intelligible, for our proceedings hadn't been, after all, very
suspicious, and the hotel, as I said, was practically empty. However, we
were beginning to have inklings of--we didn't know what, and anyhow
nerves are infectious. So we did go, first peering out as we opened the
door, and fancying (I found we both had the fancy) that a shadow, or
more than a shadow--but it made no sound--passed from before us to one
side as we came out into the passage. "It's all right," we whispered to
Paxton--whispering seemed the proper tone--and we went, with him between
us, back to our sitting-room. I was preparing, when we got there, to be
ecstatic about the unique interest of what we had seen, but when I
looked at Paxton I saw that would be terribly out of place, and I left
it to him to begin.

"What _is_ to be done?" was his opening. Long thought it right (as he
explained to me afterwards) to be obtuse, and said: "Why not find out
who the owner of the land is, and inform----" "Oh, no, no!" Paxton broke
in impatiently, "I beg your pardon: you've been very kind, but don't you
see it's _got_ to go back, and I daren't be there at night, and
daytime's impossible. Perhaps, though, you don't see: well, then, the
truth is that I've never been alone since I touched it." I was beginning
some fairly stupid comment, but Long caught my eye, and I stopped. Long
said: "I think I do see, perhaps: but wouldn't it be--a relief--to tell
us a little more clearly what the situation is?"
Then it all came out: Paxton looked over his shoulder and beckoned to us
to come nearer to him, and began speaking in a low voice: we listened
most intently, of course, and compared notes afterwards, and I wrote
down our version, so I am confident I have what he told us almost word
for word. He said: "It began when I was first prospecting, and put me
off again and again. There was always somebody--a man--standing by one
of the firs. This was in daylight, you know. He was never in front of
me. I always saw him with the tail of my eye on the left or the right,
and he was never there when I looked straight for him. I would lie down
for quite a long time and take careful observations, and make sure there
was no one, and then when I got up and began prospecting again, there he
was. And he began to give me hints, besides; for wherever I put that
prayer-book--short of locking it up, which I did at last--when I came
back to my room it was always out on my table open at the fly-leaf where
the names are, and one of my razors across it to keep it open. I'm sure
he just can't open my bag, or something more would have happened. You
see, he's light and weak, but all the same I daren't face him. Well,
then, when I was making the tunnel, of course it was worse, and if I
hadn't been so keen I should have dropped the whole thing and run. It
was like someone scraping at my back all the time: I thought for a long
time it was only soil dropping on me, but as I got nearer the--the
crown, it was unmistakable. And when I actually laid it bare and got my
fingers into the ring of it and pulled it out, there came a sort of cry
behind me--oh, I can't tell you how desolate it was! And horribly
threatening too. It spoilt all my pleasure in my find--cut it off that
moment. And if I hadn't been the wretched fool I am, I should have put
the thing back and left it. But I didn't. The rest of the time was just
awful. I had hours to get through before I could decently come back to
the hotel. First I spent time filling up my tunnel and covering my
tracks, and all the while he was there trying to thwart me. Sometimes,
you know, you see him, and sometimes you don't, just as he pleases, I
think: he's there, but he has some power over your eyes. Well, I wasn't
off the spot very long before sunrise, and then I had to get to the
junction for Seaburgh, and take a train back. And though it was daylight
fairly soon, I don't know if that made it much better. There were always
hedges, or gorse-bushes, or park fences along the road--some sort of
cover, I mean--and I was never easy for a second. And then when I began
to meet people going to work, they always looked behind me very
strangely: it might have been that they were surprised at seeing anyone
so early; but I didn't think it was only that, and I don't now: they
didn't look exactly at _me_. And the porter at the train was like that
too. And the guard held open the door after I'd got into the
carriage--just as he would if there was somebody else coming, you know.
Oh, you may be very sure it isn't my fancy," he said with a dull sort of
laugh. Then he went on: "And even if I do get it put back, he won't
forgive me: I can tell that. And I was so happy a fortnight ago." He
dropped into a chair, and I believe he began to cry.

We didn't know what to say, but we felt we must come to the rescue
somehow, and so--it really seemed the only thing--we said if he was so
set on putting the crown back in its place, we would help him. And I
must say that after what we had heard it did seem the right thing. If
these horrid consequences had come on this poor man, might there not
really be something in the original idea of the crown having some
curious power bound up with it, to guard the coast? At least, that was
my feeling, and I think it was Long's too. Our offer was very welcome to
Paxton, anyhow. When could we do it? It was nearing half-past ten. Could
we contrive to make a late walk plausible to the hotel people that very
night? We looked out of the window: there was a brilliant full moon--the
Paschal moon. Long undertook to tackle the boots and propitiate him. He
was to say that we should not be much over the hour, and if we did find
it so pleasant that we stopped out a bit longer we would see that he
didn't lose by sitting up. Well, we were pretty regular customers of the
hotel, and did not give much trouble, and were considered by the
servants to be not under the mark in the way of tips; and so the boots
_was_ propitiated, and let us out on to the sea-front, and remained, as
we heard later, looking after us. Paxton had a large coat over his arm,
under which was the wrapped-up crown.

So we were off on this strange errand before we had time to think how
very much out of the way it was. I have told this part quite shortly on
purpose, for it really does represent the haste with which we settled
our plan and took action. "The shortest way is up the hill and through
the churchyard," Paxton said, as we stood a moment before the hotel
looking up and down the front. There was nobody about--nobody at all.
Seaburgh out of the season is an early, quiet place. "We can't go along
the dyke by the cottage, because of the dog," Paxton also said, when I
pointed to what I thought a shorter way along the front and across two
fields. The reason he gave was good enough. We went up the road to the
church, and turned in at the churchyard gate. I confess to having
thought that there might be some lying there who might be conscious of
our business: but if it was so, they were also conscious that one who
was on their side, so to say, had us under surveillance, and we saw no
sign of them. But under observation we felt we were, as I have never
felt it at another time. Specially was it so when we passed out of the
churchyard into a narrow path with close high hedges, through which we
hurried as Christian did through that Valley; and so got out into open
fields. Then along hedges, though I would sooner have been in the open,
where I could see if anyone was visible behind me; over a gate or two,
and then a swerve to the left, taking us up on to the ridge which ended
in that mound.

As we neared it, Henry Long felt, and I felt too, that there were what I
can only call dim presences waiting for us, as well as a far more actual
one attending us. Of Paxton's agitation all this time I can give you no
adequate picture: he breathed like a hunted beast, and we could not
either of us look at his face. How he would manage when we got to the
very place we had not troubled to think: he had seemed so sure that that
would not be difficult. Nor was it. I never saw anything like the dash
with which he flung himself at a particular spot in the side of the
mound, and tore at it, so that in a very few minutes the greater part of
his body was out of sight. We stood holding the coat and that bundle of
handkerchiefs, and looking, very fearfully, I must admit, about us.
There was nothing to be seen: a line of dark firs behind us made one
skyline, more trees and the church tower half a mile off on the right,
cottages and a windmill on the horizon on the left, calm sea dead in
front, faint barking of a dog at a cottage on a gleaming dyke between
us and it: full moon making that path we know across the sea: the
eternal whisper of the Scotch firs just above us, and of the sea in
front. Yet, in all this quiet, an acute, an acrid consciousness of a
restrained hostility very near us, like a dog on a leash that might be
let go at any moment.

Paxton pulled himself out of the hole, and stretched a hand back to us.
"Give it to me," he whispered, "unwrapped." We pulled off the
handkerchiefs, and he took the crown. The moonlight just fell on it as
he snatched it. We had not ourselves touched that bit of metal, and I
have thought since that it was just as well. In another moment Paxton
was out of the hole again and busy shovelling back the soil with hands
that were already bleeding. He would have none of our help, though. It
was much the longest part of the job to get the place to look
undisturbed: yet--I don't know how--he made a wonderful success of it.
At last he was satisfied, and we turned back.

We were a couple of hundred yards from the hill when Long suddenly said
to him: "I say, you've left your coat there. That won't do. See?" And I
certainly did see it--the long dark overcoat lying where the tunnel had
been. Paxton had not stopped, however: he only shook his head, and held
up the coat on his arm. And when we joined him, he said, without any
excitement, but as if nothing mattered any more: "That wasn't my coat."
And, indeed, when we looked back again, that dark thing was not to be
seen.

Well, we got out on to the road, and came rapidly back that way. It was
well before twelve when we got in, trying to put a good face on it, and
saying--Long and I--what a lovely night it was for a walk. The boots was
on the look-out for us, and we made remarks like that for his
edification as we entered the hotel. He gave another look up and down
the sea-front before he locked the front door, and said: "You didn't
meet many people about, I s'pose, sir?" "No, indeed, not a soul," I
said; at which I remember Paxton looked oddly at me. "Only I thought I
see someone turn up the station road after you gentlemen," said the
boots. "Still, you was three together, and I don't suppose he meant
mischief." I didn't know what to say; Long merely said "Good night," and
we went off upstairs, promising to turn out all lights, and to go to bed
in a few minutes.

Back in our room, we did our very best to make Paxton take a cheerful
view. "There's the crown safe back," we said; "very likely you'd have
done better not to touch it" (and he heavily assented to that), "but no
real harm has been done, and we shall never give this away to anyone who
would be so mad as to go near it. Besides, don't you feel better
yourself? I don't mind confessing," I said, "that on the way there I was
very much inclined to take your view about--well, about being followed;
but going back, it wasn't at all the same thing, was it?" No, it
wouldn't do: "_You've_ nothing to trouble yourselves about," he said,
"but I'm not forgiven. I've got to pay for that miserable sacrilege
still. I know what you are going to say. The Church might help. Yes, but
it's the body that has to suffer. It's true I'm not feeling that he's
waiting outside for me just now. But----" Then he stopped. Then he
turned to thanking us, and we put him off as soon as we could. And
naturally we pressed him to use our sitting-room next day, and said we
should be glad to go out with him. Or did he play golf, perhaps? Yes, he
did, but he didn't think he should care about that to-morrow. Well, we
recommended him to get up late and sit in our room in the morning while
we were playing, and we would have a walk later in the day. He was very
submissive and _piano_ about it all: ready to do just what we thought
best, but clearly quite certain in his own mind that what was coming
could not be averted or palliated. You'll wonder why we didn't insist on
accompanying him to his home and seeing him safe into the care of
brothers or someone. The fact was he had nobody. He had had a flat in
town, but lately he had made up his mind to settle for a time in Sweden,
and he had dismantled his flat and shipped off his belongings, and was
whiling away a fortnight or three weeks before he made a start. Anyhow,
we didn't see what we could do better than sleep on it--or not sleep
very much, as was my case--and see what we felt like to-morrow morning.
We felt very different, Long and I, on as beautiful an April morning as
you could desire; and Paxton also looked very different when we saw him
at breakfast. "The first approach to a decent night I seem ever to have
had," was what he said. But he was going to do as we had settled: stay
in probably all the morning, and come out with us later. We went to the
links; we met some other men and played with them in the morning, and
had lunch there rather early, so as not to be late back. All the same,
the snares of death overtook him.

Whether it could have been prevented, I don't know. I think he would

have been got at somehow, do what we might. Anyhow, this is what
happened.

We went straight up to our room. Paxton was there, reading quite

peaceably. "Ready to come out shortly?" said Long, "say in half an
hour's time?" "Certainly," he said: and I said we would change first,
and perhaps have baths, and call for him in half an hour. I had my bath
first, and went and lay down on my bed, and slept for about ten minutes.
We came out of our rooms at the same time, and went together to the
sitting-room. Paxton wasn't there--only his book. Nor was he in his
room, nor in the downstair rooms. We shouted for him. A servant came out
and said: "Why, I thought you gentlemen was gone out already, and so did
the other gentleman. He heard you a-calling from the path there, and run
out in a hurry, and I looked out of the coffee-room window, but I
didn't see you. 'Owever, he run off down the beach that way."

Without a word we ran that way too--it was the opposite direction to
that of last night's expedition. It wasn't quite four o'clock, and the
day was fair, though not so fair as it had been, so there was really no
reason, you'd say, for anxiety: with people about, surely a man couldn't
come to much harm.

But something in our look as we ran out must have struck the servant,
for she came out on the steps, and pointed, and said, "Yes, that's the
way he went." We ran on as far as the top of the shingle bank, and there
pulled up. There was a choice of ways: past the houses on the sea-front,
or along the sand at the bottom of the beach, which, the tide being now
out, was fairly broad. Or of course we might keep along the shingle
between these two tracks and have some view of both of them; only that
was heavy going. We chose the sand, for that was the loneliest, and
someone _might_ come to harm there without being seen from the public
path.

Long said he saw Paxton some distance ahead, running and waving his
stick, as if he wanted to signal to people who were on ahead of him. I
couldn't be sure: one of these sea-mists was coming up very quickly from
the south. There was someone, that's all I could say. And there were
tracks on the sand as of someone running who wore shoes; and there were
other tracks made before those--for the shoes sometimes trod in them and
interfered with them--of someone not in shoes. Oh, of course, it's only
my word you've got to take for all this: Long's dead, we'd no time or
means to make sketches or take casts, and the next tide washed
everything away. All we could do was to notice these marks as we hurried
on. But there they were over and over again, and we had no doubt
whatever that what we saw was the track of a bare foot, and one that
showed more bones than flesh.

The notion of Paxton running after--after anything like this, and

supposing it to be the friends he was looking for, was very dreadful to
us. You can guess what we fancied: how the thing he was following might
stop suddenly and turn round on him, and what sort of face it would
show, half-seen at first in the mist--which all the while was getting
thicker and thicker. And as I ran on wondering how the poor wretch could
have been lured into mistaking that other thing for us, I remembered his
saying, "He has some power over your eyes." And then I wondered what the
end would be, for I had no hope now that the end could be averted,
and--well, there is no need to tell all the dismal and horrid thoughts
that flitted through my head as we ran on into the mist. It was uncanny,
too, that the sun should still be bright in the sky and we could see
nothing. We could only tell that we were now past the houses and had
reached that gap there is between them and the old martello tower. When
you are past the tower, you know, there is nothing but shingle for a
long way--not a house, not a human creature, just that spit of land, or
rather shingle, with the river on your right and the sea on your left.

But just before that, just by the martello tower, you remember there is
the old battery, close to the sea. I believe there are only a few blocks
of concrete left now: the rest has all been washed away, but at this
time there was a lot more, though the place was a ruin. Well, when we
got there, we clambered to the top as quick as we could to take breath
and look over the shingle in front if by chance the mist would let us
see anything. But a moment's rest we must have. We had run a mile at
least. Nothing whatever was visible ahead of us, and we were just
turning by common consent to get down and run hopelessly on, when we
heard what I can only call a laugh: and if you can understand what I
mean by a breathless, a lungless laugh, you have it: but I don't suppose
you can. It came from below, and swerved away into the mist. That was
enough. We bent over the wall. Paxton was there at the bottom.

You don't need to be told that he was dead. His tracks showed that he
had run along the side of the battery, had turned sharp round the corner
of it, and, small doubt of it, must have dashed straight into the open
arms of someone who was waiting there. His mouth was full of sand and
stones, and his teeth and jaws were broken to bits. I only glanced once
at his face.

At the same moment, just as we were scrambling down from the battery to
get to the body, we heard a shout, and saw a man running down the bank
of the martello tower. He was the caretaker stationed there, and his
keen old eyes had managed to descry through the mist that something was
wrong. He had seen Paxton fall, and had seen us a moment after, running
up--fortunate this, for otherwise we could hardly have escaped suspicion
of being concerned in the dreadful business. Had he, we asked, caught
sight of anybody attacking our friend? He could not be sure.

We sent him off for help, and stayed by the dead man till they came with
the stretcher. It was then that we traced out how he had come, on the
narrow fringe of sand under the battery wall. The rest was shingle, and
it was hopelessly impossible to tell whither the other had gone.

What were we to say at the inquest? It was a duty, we felt, not to give
up, there and then, the secret of the crown, to be published in every
paper. I don't know how much you would have told; but what we did agree
upon was this: to say that we had only made acquaintance with Paxton the
day before, and that he had told us he was under some apprehension of
danger at the hands of a man called William Ager. Also that we had seen
some other tracks besides Paxton's when we followed him along the beach.
But of course by that time everything was gone from the sands.

No one had any knowledge, fortunately, of any William Ager living in

the district. The evidence of the man at the martello tower freed us
from all suspicion. All that could be done was to return a verdict of
wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.

Paxton was so totally without connections that all the inquiries that
were subsequently made ended in a No Thoroughfare. And I have never been
at Seaburgh, or even near it, since.

[The end of _A Warning to the Curious_ by M. R. James]