All of a sudden a sound came from the dark passage below, and the listeners started back—a strange sound, the sound of long, loud laughter. It echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted passage, coming nearer and nearer. The crowd drew back.
Out came the leopard keeper, laughing, with his net; out came William, laughing, with his pitchfork; out came Poad, half laughing and half angry.
‘What is it? what is it?’ said every one outside. And for a moment none of those inside could get breath to answer.
‘What is it?’ they asked again, and at last William answered:
‘Mrs. Wilmington’s old cat! Gone in there to have her kittens in peace away from the children. They’ve caught your little bit all right,’ he said to the leopard keeper. ‘Look!’ He pointed to something white among the trees beyond the wall. ‘I told Bill to run up a signal if they found the rest of him where Poad said he’d seen his spotted tail.’
‘Did you know that before we went in?’ Poad asked sternly.
‘’Course I did,’ said William, his hands on his knees and his ruddy face deeply creased with the joke. ‘You wouldn’t have catched me going in there without I’d known where my Lord was, him and his spotted tail. I thought it was Master Rupert up to some more of his larks, I did. I wasn’t a-going to spoil sport.’
‘You ’aven’t ’eard the last of this,’ said Poad huffily.
‘No more ain’t you,’ said William, ‘so don’t you think it, James Poad. You that believed one tale when you’d seen the other. You that wouldn’t believe the sworn evidence of your own eyes and a spotted tail.’