“Taisez!” hissed Achille, who seemed to come out nobly in the great trouble—“taisez, and all shall be well; my faith, yes—it is so.”
“They will us not see,” whispered the Signor.
“Mais non!” ejaculated Achille. “But that police? What of him? We must wait.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, “pray do not move. It is one of the servants who has been discovered. I am sure that we shall be safe if we keep quite still.”
But the words were no sooner out of my mouth than there was a burst of light through the half-closed shutters behind us, a buzz of voices, and Lady Blunt, the four teachers, and several of the pupils, hurried into the drawing-room; and then, seeing the partly closed shutters, stood for a moment as if afraid to come any further.
I darted from pauvre Achille, giving him a sharp jerk at the same moment; and, as my elbow crashed through a pane of glass, and I slipped behind the great green blind in the corner, I heard an exclamation in French. There was a great splash, followed by a noise as of some large body snorting and floundering in the great tank; and my blood ran cold, as I wanted to run out, but felt chained to the spot where I was concealed.
“I have murdered him, I know!” I gasped.
At the very same moment there was a fearful scream from poor Clara, as the light of half-a-dozen candles shone upon her smutty face, where there was the mark of a hand all down one cheek. And, frightened though I was, I seemed to notice everything, as if my senses were all sharpened; and, at one and the same time, I saw my own trouble, Clara, and my poor Achille drowning in the great tank.
Poor Clara covered her face in an instant, and a loud rustling of the ivy on the edge of the cistern, the sound of a body falling, and then came retreating feet along the gravel.