No sooner had he disappeared than the bushes and vines behind the rock were torn asunder and a man wormed his way through them.

For an instant he paused, listening for returning footsteps, and then with startling agility darted to the beach and seized the crumpled letter.
The person who for the greater part of the afternoon had been spying upon Captain Plum from the security of the thicket was to all appearances a very small and a very old man, though there was something about him that seemed to belie a first guess at his age.

His face was emaciated; his hair was white and hung in straggling masses on his shoulders; his hooked nose bore apparently the infallible stamp of extreme age.

Yet there was a strange and uncanny strength and quickness in his movements.

There was no stoop to his shoulders.