"I've noticed it to-day, right enough," said Tobias with some emphasis. But he was mollified, and indeed seemed on the point of adding a word when of a sudden he came to yet another halt and eyed his friend more reproachfully than ever—no, not reproachfully save by implication: with bewilderment rather, and helpless surmise.
"What?" gasped Captain Tobias. "Which?"—and, with that, speech failed him.
The pair had come to the footbridge and were in the act of crossing it, when they became aware that the stream beneath them differed from all streams in their experience. It was not rippling like other streams; it was not murmuring; it was tinkling out a gay little operatic tune!
To be more precise, it was rendering the waltz-tune in "Faust," an opera by the late M. Gounod. Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken knew nothing of "Faust" or of its composer. But they could recognise a tune.
"Which?" repeated Tobias gasping, holding by the handrail of the bridge. "You or me? Or both, perhaps?"
"Two glasses o' port wine only, 'Bias . . . and you saw me at the station. I'd run all the way too. . . . Besides, you hear it." Relief, of a sudden, broke over Captain Cai's face. "It's the box!" he cried.
With that he was aware of the sound of a merry laugh behind him—a feminine laugh, too, not less musical than the melody still tinkling at his feet. He turned about and confronted Mrs Bosenna as she stepped forth from her hiding in the bushes, her maid Dinah in attendance close behind her.
"Good afternoon again, Captain Hocken! And is this Captain Hunken?
. . . It was polite of you—polite indeed—to bring him so soon."
She held out a hand to Tobias, who, to take it, was forced to relinquish for a moment his clutch on the rail.
"Servant, ma'am," said he in a gruff unnatural voice, and fell back on his support.