And off he went across the narrow archway, with Bert watching him anxiously, as if doubtful of his capacity to cross. If Clive could have read his friend's thoughts he would have flushed even redder than he had done a little while before, for conditions were reversed with a vengeance. It was always a matter of doubt with Clive and Hugh, and with the somewhat bumptious Masters, to tell the tale fully, whether Bert, when accompanying the Old Firm on some of its more reckless expeditions, would ruin its success by his natural timidity. And here he was ready to call Clive a funk if need be, and anxiously wondering whether he were capable of doing what he, Bert, had done!
"Ah! Glad you managed it. Thought you might get giddy and fall," he whispered. "Now lie down and don't kick up a beastly row. I want to listen."
There was sudden movement down below. One of the four under observation—and now that Clive and Bert had changed their point of vantage, invisible to them, for they were almost directly beneath—rose from the stone seat he had been occupying, kicked the logs on the fire till they sent a stream of sparks upward, and then sauntered out into that part of the chapel exposed to the sky. Where a roof should have been, there was now nothing but the broken ends of what had, doubtless, once been finely carved stone arches. They poked their shattered tips from the farther wall like so many fingers, and attracted the attention of the fellow below. Seeing him suddenly appear, Clive lay even flatter, and he, too, took stock of those remains of broken arches. And then, straightway, he pictured the chapel as it had been, with its carved and ornamental roof, its beautiful stone pillars, its aisles, its pews. And in amongst the latter those people of a bygone day. Men in armour, ladies in the fashion of the time, retainers stationed everywhere. He even fancied he heard the low-voiced music of the organ, the chanting of the choir, the deep bass notes of the priest in attendance. And then he was startled into the reality of things as they were. For the man below was speaking. Despite his clothes, one would have sworn that he had some pretensions to being a gentleman. He was still smoking a cigarette, and now knocked the end against one of the pillars of the chapel so as to clear it of ash. Then he looked around, as if admiring the ruins.
"A queer place to be hidden in, eh?" he asked, flourishing the cigarette. "Romantic and all that. Haunted, they tell me. All the better. No one likely to interfere."
His voice was singularly tuneful. Had Clive or Bert met him elsewhere and seen him dressed in other raiment they would decidedly have proclaimed him to be a gentleman. But then, the times we live in are strange ones.
"The most honest, sometimes the most ragged," Bert murmured. "The more gentlemanly, sometimes the cleverer rascal. That chap's good looking."
Clive nodded. "Yes," he said. "I believe I've seen him somewhere else before this."
"Round about here?"
This time Clive shook his head. He could not recollect; but of this he was sure, he had seen this man, and under different circumstances.
"I'll swear he was well dressed then," he whispered. "But let's shut up. They're gassing."