Again the murmuring voice intervened, but the loud voice broke in:
“I tell you she must be got out of the way! Now go look after these visitors below.”
A sound of shuffling feet was heard, and Justin whispered to Erminie:
“Little sister, there’s something wrong here, but we must not seem to have been listening.” And, so saying, he hurried her down the stairs, as fast as the darkness would permit him to do with safety. Arrived at the foot, he waited some few minutes, and then he sang out as loud as he could:
“Hallo! waiter! porter! footman! major-domo! man of all work! whatever or whoever you are! where are you? Come, let us in; or let us out!”
“I am here, set fire to you! Couldn’t you be quiet for five minutes, while I was gone to tell the old lady?” answered a growling voice from the hall above. And at the same time a person, bearing a dim light, began to descend the stairs.
He was a man of about thirty years of age, of gigantic height; but with a small head, and closely-cut black hair, and a beardless, or else closely-shaven, dark-complexioned face; a man you would not like to meet on a lonely road on a dark night. He was dressed from head to foot in a closely-fitting suit of the dust-colored coarse cloth that has since become so well known as the uniform of the Confederate army.
“Couldn’t you be easy for five minutes, while I was gone?” he growled, as he reached the foot of the stairs.
“Your minutes are very long ones, friend!” laughed Justin.
“You want to see the old lady, you say?”