"Let me go ahead and look over the ground. I will signal when it is safe to follow. I have reasons of my own for wanting to get there without losing a minute; otherwise, I would wait until to-morrow, to look it over by daylight and lay my own trap. But I will surely let you know if I have found him."
"How can you signal, Mr. Warren Jarvis? We have no telephones in Seguro." Jarvis walked over toward the old paneled window.
"With a light. See over here—there is the castle; you can of course see it through the window. I was asking all sorts of questions of old Pedro when he was in my room. He knows every foot of that land, even if he has been afraid to go near it for fifteen years or so."
"Well, what will you do?"
"Just as Paul Revere's friend did in the early days in my country: I'll put a light somewhere in one of those towers, and you can see it from this room or through one of the windows upstairs here. It will shine in an hour at the most. You won't have long to wait!"
"But if it does not shine?" and she paled at the thought.
"I'll be too busy swapping lead for brimstone with Mr. Spook to stop and hang a lantern!"
XV
MYSTERIOUS INFLUENCES