A white shirt with a blue collar, embroidered in red, falling over his broad shoulders, permitted a view of the bull like neck of our sailor, whose skin was tanned until it resembled parchment, the colour of brick. A round vest of blue cloth, with buttons marked with an anchor, and wide trousers bound to his hips by a red woollen girdle, completed our man's apparel. Side-whiskers of brown, shaded with fawn colour, encased his square face, which expressed both good humour and decision of character. A superficial observer might have supposed the left cheek of the sailor to be considerably inflamed, but a more attentive examination would have disclosed the fact that an enormous quid of tobacco produced this one-sided tumefaction. Let us add, lastly, that the sailor carried on his back a bag, whose contents seemed quite bulky.
The two men had just reached a place in front of a high wall surrounding a garden. The top of the trees could scarcely be distinguished, for the night had fallen.
The young man said to his companion, as he stopped and turned his ear eastward:
"Sans-Plume, listen."
"Please God, what is it, captain?" said the man with the tobacco quid, in reply to this singular surname.
"I am not mistaken, it is certainly here."
"Yes, captain, it is in this made land between these two large trees. Here is the place where the wall is a little damaged. I noticed it yesterday evening at dusk, when we picked up the stone and the letter."
"That is so. Come quick, my old seaman," said the captain to his sailor, indicating with his eye one of the large trees of the boulevard, several of whose branches hung over the garden wall. "Up, Sans-Plume, while we are waiting the hour let us see if we can rig the thing."
"Captain, there is still a bit of twilight, and I see below a man who is coming this way."
"Then let us wait. Hide first your bag behind the trunk of this tree,—you have forgotten nothing?"