He was apparently asleep in five minutes, but Appleby lay motionless in his chair with every sense alert. The laughter and hum of voices had died away, and only an occasional hoarse shouting rose from the town. His eyes were fixed on the patio, and his hands, which were hard and brown, clenched on the rifle; but his thoughts were far away in a garden where the red beech leaves strewed the velvet grass in peaceful England, and it was not Nettie Harding’s blue eyes, but Violet Wayne’s calm gray ones that seemed to look into his. Harper’s words by the camp fire were bearing fruit, and he was ready to admit now that it was a woman who had sent him there. There was also satisfaction in the thought that he was serving her, which was the most he could look for, since his part was to give and not expect, but he felt that she would approve of what he was doing then. So the time slipped by; while Nettie Harding, still sitting behind the lattice, now and then raised her head and looked at him. His attitude betokened his watchfulness, and with a little sigh of relief she sank back into her chair again. That ragged figure with the grim, brown face seemed an adequate barrier between her and whatever could threaten her.
At last there was a trampling below, and several dusky men staggering suggestively came up the stairway. The girl heard the sound, and shivered as she watched them, until a gaunt figure rose up from beneath their feet. Then they stopped, and one of them fell down the steps and reeled with a crash against a pillar at the bottom.
“You can stop there. There is plenty of room in the stable,” said a voice; and when Appleby flung up a hand commandingly the men went away, and there was quietness again.
How long it lasted Nettie did not know, for, though she had no intention of doing so, she went to sleep, and did not hear a man come up the stairway. He had a lean face and keen blue eyes, but there was tense anxiety in them now. Appleby, who rose up, signed Harper to step aside, and in another moment the two men stood face to face—one of them dusty and worn and ragged, the other in what had been a few hours earlier immaculate dress.
“Where is my daughter?” said the latter. “There’s five hundred dollars for any one who will bring her to me.”
Appleby smiled a little. “She is here.”
The other man shook visibly and clenched his hand, but Appleby moved out of the shadow so that his face was visible, and the American’s grew quietly stern.
“Then you shall pay for this,” he said.
“Hadn’t you better speak to Miss Harding first?” said Appleby. “Knock at the door in front of you. I believe it is bolted inside.”
Harding struck the door. There was a little cry of terror that changed to one of joyful surprise, the door swung open, and the man went inside. It was five minutes later when he came out again, and he had a wallet in his hand when he stopped before Appleby. Then he started.