Freda need not have been afraid of discovery. The man carried no light, and she could only dimly see the outline of his figure as he crossed the floor noiselessly towards one of the long windows. This he pushed up with only the very faintest sound, and putting his head out, said in a low voice:
“Ready?”
Freda who in her eagerness to discover whether this was her father on the point of escaping, had crawled along the bare boards close under the windows, was listening, watching with her heart beating so violently that she was afraid it would betray her. She heard no answer given, but the man drew in his head and retired again through the panel-door. By his gait she knew that he was not a gentleman, and therefore that he could not be her father. She heard him go down the stone steps, which she guessed to be those up which Crispin had carried her; and then making the most of her opportunity, she ran to the open window, and looked out.
A man was waiting in the court-yard underneath. He must have heard her footsteps, for he raised his head, and seeing that somebody was at the window, he said, in a hoarse whisper:
“Eh, but thou’rt a long toime to-neght. Thou’rt not very spry for a sailor! Art droonk again?”
Freda drew in her head before he had time to see that it was a woman whom he was addressing; but not before she had seen enough of his figure, and heard enough of his rough, thick voice, to ask herself whether this was not Josiah Kemm, of the “Barley Mow.” The man, whoever he was, had hardly finished speaking, when from behind the panelling she heard again the distant murmur of voices, and footsteps coming up the stone staircase. She hastily retreated from the window, not to the corner she had left, but to the door by which she had entered the gallery. She had scarcely done so when the man she had previously seen reappeared. As she was now much nearer to him, she could distinctly see that he had upon his back a package about three feet square which was evidently heavy. This he carried across to the window, and let down by means of a rope into the court-yard. Then she heard faintly the voice of the man in the court-yard asking some question. Although she could not distinguish his words, the answer of the man above, “No. Nobody,” told her that the question had concerned her own appearance at the window. Judging therefore that an investigation might follow, she crept along the stone passage and locked herself in her own room as quickly as she could.
Next morning, however, she would not have her breakfast until she had found an opportunity of exchanging a few words with Crispin Bean.
“Crispin,” she began solemnly, “you remember telling me that the sailors of my father’s yacht were in the house one night when I heard a noise?”
He grunted an affirmative rather shortly.
“Well,” she went on, “they were here again last night.”