“Oh!”
The interjection came as if it were the outcome of sudden passion. There was a quick, rustling sound, and before the boy could realise what was to come, the door was closed, the lock shot into its socket, and he heard the grinding sound of bolts, top and bottom.
Then, as Archy stood in the dark, literally aghast with astonishment, he heard the faint rustling once more, and again all was silent.
“Well!” he exclaimed; “and I felt sorry for her as one might for one’s sister at home, and hung back from getting her people into trouble. Of all the fierce little tartars! Oh, it’s beyond anything! Why, she has locked me up!”
He laughed, but it was a curious kind of laugh, full of vexation, injured amour propre, as the French call our love of our own dignity, of which Archibald Raystoke, in the full flush of his young belief in his importance as a British officer, had a pretty good stock.
“I never did!” he exclaimed, after standing listening for a few minutes to see if the girl would repent and return. “It all comes of dressing up in this stupid way, like a rough fisher-lad. If I had been in uniform, she would not have dared.”
Cold water came on this idea directly, as he recalled the fact that the darkness was intense, and Celia could not have seen him.
“And I meant to save them from trouble if I could, out of respect for them all, and did not believe that such people could stoop to be mixed up with rogues and smugglers. But, all right! I’ve got my duty to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll soon show them that I am not going to be played with. Looked such a nice, lady-like girl, and all the time she’s a female smuggler, and must have been sitting up to let them in, and lock up after the rascals had done.”
Rather hard measure, by the way, to deal out to the anxious girl, who could not rest while Shackle’s gang were busy about the place, and had come stealthily down to open the little corner room window, and watch from time to time until they had gone.
“Well,” said Archy, as there was no further sound heard, “I’m not going to put up with this. I’ll soon rattle some one up;” and he went sharply to the door, felt for the handle, tried it, and was about to shake it and bang at the panels, when discretion got the better of valour.