Was that a possible conclusion?
There was a line all down the sands where the tide had reached, a straggling uneven line marked with huge masses of wet seaweeds, fragments of timber, the flotsam and jetsam of the sea.

The creek where the man's body was lying was forty yards above this.

Yet on such a night who could say where those great breakers, driven in by the wind as well as by their own mighty force, might not have cast their prey?
Within a few yards of him was a jagged mass of timber.

The cause of those wounds would be obvious enough.

I felt the ring in my waistcoat pocket--it was there, safely enough hidden, and I looked toward the lodge.