Occasionally the silence about her was broken by the mournful howling of a dog; but otherwise all was still.
The night was cloudless, and the lightening of the sky toward the east told her that before long a moon would rise above the trees.
Near the road she found a little rustic bench, and upon this she sat down to think.
The howling of the dog had suggested to her mind a possible clue to the house within which Mr. Stapleton's boy had been, for a time at least, confined. She could remember nothing of the garden, and but little of the room in which she had been confined; but the dog, playing upon the grass with the child, had fixed itself in her memory. She recollected distinctly that he was a poodle, mostly black, with fine curling hair, like astrakhan fur, and a pointed nose.
There were many dogs of this sort, she well knew, and yet there was one peculiarity which had impressed itself upon her memory, which would inevitably serve to identify this particular dog, should she ever see him again. His long and bushy tail, black for the most part like the rest of his body, terminated in a plume of white hair.
It was a most unusual marking in a French poodle. She had never seen it before, and she was a great lover of dogs, and knew them thoroughly. It was this fact, no doubt, which had caused her to notice the animal, at a time when her mind was filled with matters of vastly greater importance.
She had sought carefully for such a dog, on the occasion of the previous search, but had not found him. The tale about the escaped cobra had caused the country folk to lock up their pets without loss of time.
Now she hoped to find this dog, and through him discover the location of the house in which she had been confined. After that—well, she would do the best she could.
It occurred to her that she was not at all likely to discover the whereabouts of the black poodle by sitting here on a bench; yet she dared not start out until the moon had risen sufficiently high to light up her way.
In about an hour, the rim of the golden disk showed itself above the treetops, and a little later the black shadows about her began to grow luminous, and resolve themselves into white-walled cottages, hedges, and outbuildings of various sorts.