"Y—yes," stammered Milo, still battling with the idea of bluffing this calmly authoritative man. "Yes. They're all right. But where you got the idea—"
"How many of them are there? The servants, I mean."
"Four," spoke up Claire, returning from her finished work, and pausing on her way to do like duty for the upstairs windows. "Two men and two women."
"Please go out to the kitchen and see everything is all right, there," said Brice. "Lock and bar everything. Tell your two women servants they can get out, if they want to. They'll be no use here and they may get hysterical, as they did last night when we had that scrimmage outside. The men-servants may be useful. Send them here."
Before she could obey, the dining room curtains were parted, and a black-clad little Jap butler sidled into the hallway, his jaw adroop, his beady eyes astare with terror, his hands washing each other with invisible soap-and-water.
"Sato!" exclaimed Claire.
The Jap paid no heed.
"Prease!" he chattered between castanet teeth. "Prease, I hear.
I scare. I no fight man. I go, prease! I s-s-s-s, I—"
Sato's scant knowledge of English seemed to forsake him, under the stress of his terror. And he broke into a monkeylike mouthing in his native Japanese. Milo took a step toward him. Sato screeched like a stuck pig and crouched to the ground.
"Wait!" suggested Brice, going toward the abject creature.
"Let me handle him. I know a bit of his language. Miss
Standish, please go on with closing the rest of the house.
Here, you!" he continued, addressing the Jap. "Here!"