Chapter Ten.
“I can’t bully him to-night—a young dog!” said the captain. “He must be half-starved. I wonder whether Broughton has gone to bed.”
He went down slowly to the library without a light, meaning to summon the butler and make him prepare a tray.
But meanwhile Admiral Belton had provided himself with a chamber candlestick and stolen softly down-stairs, through the baize door at one side of the hall, and along the passage that led to the kitchen.
“Can’t leave the poor lad to starve,” he muttered; “and I dare say I shall find out the larder by the smell.”
He chuckled to himself as he softly unfastened a door.
“Nice game this for one of his Majesty’s old officers of the fleet,” he said. “Wonder what they’d say at the club if they saw me?”
The door passed, he had no difficulty in finding the kitchen, for there was a pleasant chirping of crickets to greet his ear; a kitcheny smell that was oniony and unmistakable, and a few paces farther on his feet were on stones that were sanded, and all at once there was a loud pop where he put down his foot.
He lowered the light and saw that black beetles were scouring away in all directions.