"Ay. Keep on your clothes, of course—I shall. There's a bed, and that great sofa—you can give Dawkin that. You'd best go and help him up now." Roxley departed with an uncertain step.
"Fetch your trusty henchman now, if you will, Boyd," assented Jermain, wearily. "I—I'll pay him for it to-morrow. I ought to have looked sharper after these soldiers of mine."
The die was cast. If he still were resolved Lord Armitage might come. And Roxley held the key.
Boyd vanished. Jermain gaped tremendously, sank into a seat, and leaned his spinning head upon his palm. Roxley came in with Dawkin and succeeded in getting him, still somnolent, upon the sofa, Jermain dozing in his chair while this performance was got through with. "Push up his long legs, Roxley," he advised—"that's it! I shall be glad to push up mine, I'm sure. My report must be—a—well, a loose affair, if I have to draw out one. Whe-e-w!" and the captain groaned. "How fagged I am! Here's Boyd, at last."
Behind Gilbert slouched an ill-kempt peasant, whose age was undistinguishable, armed with a pair of pistols and a cutlass. His hair hung low over his forehead.
"Found somebody, did you?" inquired Jermain, rousing himself and bestowing a single glance on Sir Geoffry. "Well, my man, we rely upon your eyes and ears for at least the forepart of the night; until Mr. Roxley relieves you—if he does. Call him, call me, if you hear or see aught amiss, within or without. Do you understand?"
A clumsy nod was the supposed servant's reply. Boyd, unwilling to open his lips in this danger-fraught moment, lighted Captain Jermain away, and beneath his grim brows looked at the three thus face to face. It seemed incredible that the men whose meeting, an hour or so earlier, seemed such an accident of dread, could, in this moment, be contrived with but a fraction of risk to one of them!
"Good-night, Roxley!" said the Captain. "Lock the door after us." But he drew the soldier aside. "Look here, Roxley, we start early; sleep soundly, but not too soundly. We ain't setting an example of discipline to the service to-night! Boyd's hand might be tempted to do—one knows not exactly what. Another time, when we have prisoners, we had best rest earlier—and drink less. Mum's the word, though, Roxley."
With a parting glance at the supposed Highlander, who sat on a stool by the chimney-piece, the very model of a steadfast, awkward Scotch farm-servant, expecting to be well-feed for an irksome duty, the Captain allowed Boyd to conduct him from the East Room.
Roxley made a remark or two to his mute aid, while pulling off his boots. "Rouse me, if aught goes amiss," he said, with a hiccough, "but not unless—and I don't promise this—you can wake me any easier than Dawkin over there. You and I'll call it our night off duty—eh?—now that Captain's gone." Whereupon Roxley sighed and hiccoughed again, and laid himself at full length across one of Mistress Annan's best coverlets; and, in a trice, could not have been roused by the incoming of his own horse at a trot.