"Eh?" The boy drew closer to her shoulder.
"It's Gavel, come in a sweat for 'is 'orses. I didn' reckernise 'im for the moment—dressed out in a fur coat an' Trilby 'at. But it's Gavel, an' 'e's walkin' straight into Glasson's arms. Stand by to do a bolt soon as 'e turns the corner."
"But I don't see what he has to do with—with—" Arthur Miles hesitated before the terrible name.
"Glasson? Oh, nothin'; on'y ten to one Gavel's met with the Mortimers, an', Glasson bein' on the track already—W'y, what elst is the man 'ere for?"
"He shan't take me," said the boy after a pause, and in a strained low voice which, nevertheless, had no tremor in it. "Not if I throw myself off the ladder."
"You stop that talk, please," threatened Tilda. "It's wicked; an' besides, they 'aven't caught us yet. Do what I tell yer, an' stand by to bolt."
She crept to the other door, which commanded the canal front, unbarred it softly, and opened the upper hatch a few inches. Through this aperture, by standing on tip-toe, she could watch the meeting of the two men.
"When I call, run for yer life."
But a minute—two minutes—passed, and the command did not come. Arthur Miles, posted by the bolt-hole, held his breath at the sound of voices without, by the waterside. The tones of one he recognised with a shiver. They were raised, and although he could not catch the words, apparently in altercation. Forgetting orders, he tip-toed across to Tilda's elbow.
Mr. James Gavel, proprietor of Imperial Steam Roundabouts—as well as of half a dozen side-shows, including a Fat Lady and a Try-your-Strength machine—was a small man with a purplish nose and a temper kept irritable by alcohol; and to-day the Fates had conspired to rub that temper on the raw. He swore aloud, and partly believed, that ever since coming to Henley-in-Arden he was bewitched.