“I must return to Teresa,” he finally said. “It is the last time I shall see her.”
He then insisted on taking them without delay to their lodgings. On the way, he swung the gondola into another dark and narrow canal. A peculiar whistle sounded from his lips, causing Professor Gunn, who was very nervous by this time, to give a jump of alarm.
“My! my!” muttered the old pedagogue. “I’m expecting anything to happen! I’m looking for assassins everywhere. Why did he whistle? What does it mean?”
The answer came in the form of a gleam of light from a window in the wall on their left.
Reggio uttered a soft exclamation of satisfaction.
“Teresa is waiting for me, signors,” he said. “I must hasten with you and then return.”
“So this is his ranch,” said Buckhart. “He camps here, I judge.”
But now a change came over the gondolier. The light above had been shut off suddenly. Darkness followed for a moment, after which the light gleamed again. Again it disappeared for a few seconds, and again it gleamed.
“Trouble!” hissed Reggio. “Teresa has made the danger signal!”
“Dear! dear! dear!” gasped Zenas Gunn. “This is terrible! It is so dark. In the light of day I am brave as a lion—I fear nothing. But this darkness is so treacherous that I—really I’m disturbed.”