“You haven’t started for Bellville yet, have you? I think it will be a long time before you will have a chance to tell those stories about us. Hollo, here! You’re just in time.”
A heavy step sounded in the hall, and some one growled out in reply to Bayard’s salutation:
“Hollo yourself! What are you doing in this house? I’ve seen enough of you, and you had better make yourselves scarce about here, sudden.”
“That’s Pierre,” whispered Chase, in great alarm. “We’re done for now.”
Yes, it was Pierre. When he reached the bayou he found that the pirogue was in need of some repairs. Long exposure to the sun had opened wide seams in her sides, and these must be caulked before she was put into the water. Pierre at once returned to the house to get the necessary implements, and arrived there just in time to be of assistance to Bayard and his cousins. The fugitives were dismayed when they heard his voice. They stood irresolute for a moment, and then began running about the room, moving with cautious footsteps, and darting from side to side like a couple of rats cornered in an oat-bin. They heard a few words of the conversation that was carried on in the hall, but they were too nearly overcome with terror, and too completely absorbed in their desire to escape, to pay much attention to it.
“If you knew what an important service we have just rendered you, you wouldn’t be in such a hurry to order us to make ourselves scarce about here,” said Bayard, addressing himself to Pierre. “You left a prisoner here, didn’t you?”
“What of him?” demanded Pierre, and this time he spoke in a very different tone of voice. “Have you seen him? Has he escaped?”
“Do you remember the fellow you allowed to go at liberty last night when you captured Chase?” continued Bayard. “Well, he has been hanging around here watching you; and a few minutes ago he came into the house, tore a hole in the floor of the loft—”
“Where is he now?” interrupted Pierre, who did not like Bayard’s roundabout way of getting at things.
“He’s in that room, and so is Chase. They would have come out and made off if it hadn’t been for us; but we drove them back by throwing corn at them.”