"
Sergeant Cuff turned about northward, towards the quicksand.
"How much on this side?" he asked.
"Less still," answered Yolland. "The Shivering Sand would have been just
awash, and no more."
The Sergeant turned to me, and said that the accident must have happened
on the side of the quicksand. My tongue was loosened at that. "No
accident!" I told him. "When she came to this place, she came weary of
her life, to end it here."
He started back from me. "How do you know?" he asked. The rest of them
crowded round. The Sergeant recovered himself instantly. He put them
back from me; he said I was an old man; he said the discovery had shaken
me; he said, "Let him alone a little." Then he turned to Yolland, and
asked, "Is there any chance of finding her, when the tide ebbs again?"
And Yolland answered, "None. What the Sand gets, the Sand keeps for
ever." Having said that, the fisherman came a step nearer, and addressed
himself to me.
"Mr. Betteredge," he said, "I have a word to say to you about the young
woman's death. Four foot out, broadwise, along the side of the Spit,
there's a shelf of rock, about half fathom down under the sand.
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