“Shower!” said Uncle Paul. “It looks to me like a night of storm coming on, and as if we shan’t get back to the schooner to-night.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter, uncle,” cried the boy coolly. “There’s sure to be a good hotel, and Captain Chubb will know why we haven’t come back. As soon as there’s a bit of a lull we will make a run for it, and we shall be able to get a lesson in French.”
“Bah!” said Uncle Paul impatiently. “How the wind comes whistling through this archway! We shall be getting wet even here.”
The two men on guard were evidently of the same opinion, for they turned to their sentry boxes and began to put on their overcoats, after standing their muskets inside.
But before this was half done, each snatched up his piece again and faced the entrance, for all at once there was the clattering of hoofs in the cobbled paved street, and a cavalry officer, followed at a short distance by a couple of men, dashed up to the front and turned in under the archway, drenched with rain, the officer saying something sharply to one of the sentries.
The man replied by pointing to a doorway at the back of the great entrance, while the officer swung himself from his horse, threw the rein to one of his men, and then lifting his sabre-tache by the strap he gave it a swing or two to throw off the water from its dripping sides, and then opened the great pocket to peer inside as if to see that its contents were safe.
The next moment, as if satisfied, he let it fall to the full length of its slings, gave a stamp or two to shake off the water that dripped from him, and then raised his hands to give a twist to the points of his wet moustache. He scowled fiercely at Rodd the while, and then marched towards the doorway with the steel scabbard of his sabre clinking and clanking over the stones.
“Pretty good opinion of himself, Pickle,” said Uncle Paul quietly.
“Yes, uncle; but what a pair of trousers—no, I mean long boots—no, I don’t; I mean trousers.—Which are they, uncle?” added the boy, who was rather tickled by the size and the way in which they were finished off at the bottoms with leather as if they were jack-boots.
“Wait till he comes out, Pickle, and ask him,” said the doctor dryly.