"No, ma'am," Mary said; "I haven't been there since dinner."
"Oh, well, then, he must have been dreaming," Mrs. Orban said, still in the same cheery way. "We will just go all through the house and show him everything is all right, and then I will sit by him till he gets to sleep again."
Eustace took a lantern, and on they all went right through the house, very naturally finding no one. Robertson, who was smoking on the veranda, declared that no one had been up or down the steps since he had been out, and Mrs. Robertson, who was in her bedroom lulling the baby to sleep, said no one had been that way either.
After all of which Eustace and Nesta began to breathe freely; but, to tell the truth, at first they had both been a good deal scared by Peter's announcement. They guessed their mother was just making all this show of bravery for Peter's and their sakes, for another visit from the thief was not at all unlikely.
But when Robertson laughed at the notion of any one having been able to pass him unseen where he stood near the veranda steps, when every nook and cranny had been looked into and no one was forthcoming to prove Peter's tale, every one was certain he had had a bad dream.
"You are a little silly," Nesta said bracingly. "Of course there are always noises in the house."
"But this was a big noise," Peter objected; "something banged."
"Why didn't you say that before?" said Eustace with superiority; then added, out of the vastness of his recent experience, "Nobody ever bangs when they want to rob a house; they try to be as silent as mice."
"Besides," said Nesta, "there is nothing for any one to steal now, since we keep all our things hidden away."
This was a rule Mrs. Orban had made—that everything of value must be put away under lock and key. She had no fancy to be perpetually paying away rewards for recovered goods. She believed Sinkum Fung to be quite capable of setting people to do these little pilferings just in order to obtain the rewards. Disagreeable as was the idea, it frightened her far less than the thought of genuine black-fellows lurking about the place; they were really dangerous, cruel, and lawless.