But there are no assurances in this world of chance-takings. We did not know what moment our boat-builder might turn up, with a gang of smugglers or others at his elbow, and with a just cause of quarrel big enough to warrant anything he might do to us. Moreover, there was Mr. James Askew, also at large, and doubtless seeking for us as the woman of Scripture, who lit her candle and swept her house diligently until she found her lost piece of money. Moreover, again, there was the Irish grog-seller, whose silence, bought and paid for though it was, was worth little more than a perjurer’s oath.
“Well, let’s be doing,” I said, when we had wrought through a pipeful or two of the boat-builder’s tobacco, and the weight of the various “moreovers” was beginning to grow oppressive. “Will your Dutchman happen to have such a thing as a lantern about his house?”
The sergeant went to rummage in the outer room, coming back almost immediately to ask if I had heard a noise.
“Nothing but the wind in the chimney,” I said.
“I did,” said Champe, listening attentively. “It was like the soft slamming of a door, and I thought it was in here.”
“Not here, certainly. There is no door but the front one, and that is locked as you left it.”
“All right; then I didn’t hear it,” he contradicted, and went out again to continue the lantern hunt.
The next time it was I who heard the noise, which sounded like a blow struck upon an empty cask. Tip-toeing out, I laid a finger on Champe’s shoulder, and his nervous start was a measure of the pitch to which we were both keyed.
“Hist!” I whispered; “your Dutchman has come back to his cellar!”
The sergeant cocked an ear and we both listened intently. There were no more alarms, and the silence of the grave seemed to have settled on the lonesome house.