The sergeant yawned and felt tenderly of his throat, a gesture that was growing into a habit with him.
“Orders, Captain Dick,” he said, parrot-like.
“There are none. I am going into the town for an hour or more, and you may do as you think best: stay here and face it out when it comes, or cut and run for it. You may have an hour’s grace, or two or three, or no time at all.”
“And you,” he said; “what will you do?”
“I shall come back here and see the grist put through the mill, as I may be allowed to.”
“Then here I stay,” he announced calmly, sitting down; and so I left him, hoping little ever to see him again as a free man.
There was no corporal’s guard waiting to seize me at the outer door, as I more than half expected there would be; and taking advantage of the gathering dusk, I got away from the dangerous neighborhood as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible, arguing that it would take some little time for Castner to spread a net that would reach over any very wide area of the town.
Fifteen minutes later I was rattling the knocker on Mr. Vandeventer’s door; and this time it was Beatrix who opened to me.
“Oh!” she gasped; “I thought you would never come!” And when I stepped within: “Something has happened—your face tells me. Oh, Dick! is there—are you in danger?”
Her eager solicitude was a balm to my soul, and just at that moment I was needing balms. But I had no notion of adding my burdens to hers, since hers were surely heavy enough as they lay.