If the stranger had not Stated that he had important business to transact, and had there not been something superior in his speech and deportment to the ordinary tramp with whom every man in the Australian colonies is familiar, Basil would have set him down as a member of that delectable fraternity. Notwithstanding this favourable opinion, however, Basil took an instinctive dislike to the man. He had seen in him an odd likeness to the alligator, and brief as had been their interview up to this point, he had gone the length of mentally comparing him now to a fox, now to a jackal--to any member of the brute species indeed whose nature was distinguished by the elements of rapacity and cunning.
"Have you far to go?" he asked.
"No farther," replied the stranger, with an upward glance at Anthony Bidaud's house, one end of which was visible from the spot upon which they were conversing.
"Is that your destination?" inquired Basil, observing the upward glance.
"That," said the stranger, with a light laugh, "is my destination, if I have not been misinformed."
The laugh intensified Basil's dislike; there was a mocking sinister ring in it, but he nevertheless continued the conversation.
"Misinformed in what respect?"
"That is M. Bidaud's house?"
"It is M. Bidaud's house."
"M. Anthony Bidaud?"