“Follow me,” she whispered. “But don’t make the least noise.”
She led me a long way till we came out after many wanderings upon a little balcony on the outside of the house under the eaves. In the shadow before us I could just make out the vague form of a man who was awaiting us.
“It is Pierre,” she whispered; and the next moment we were talking in guarded whispers. She had smuggled him into the house and up here so that he could deliver his message to me without danger of being overheard by stray persons about the house. But after all, his message to me was small enough, if it was worth being called a message at all. But I learned something of importance from him, for all that.
“Lady Marmaduke is getting so anxious that she would have it that I come and speak with you, danger or no danger,” said Pierre. “Have you any word to send her?”
I told him briefly that nothing of importance had happened. Then I asked him what news he could give me from the city. Matters were in a much worse state there than I had thought.
“The citizens,” said Pierre, “are like chicks without their mother.”
“They’d duck you if they heard that,” put in Annetje, who always enjoyed a fling at Pierre for his former escapade. “It is just the thing for people who talk too much. Now there was Long Mary once—”
“Never mind Long Mary or you’ll get ducked yourself. Monsieur Le Bourse, they are just as I said, like chicks without their mother. They run here and there and everywhere, chirping for the governor to do something. There is nothing he can do unless he loads up the guns on the Battery and shoots them at the bay. I wish he would. It would make safer ducking, which I should like in case Annetje—”
Her hand smothered the rest of this, whatever it was.
“If I were the governor,” broke in Annetje, trying to keep her muzzling hand over her sweetheart’s mouth. “I should do something. I am sure I don’t know what there is to be done. But look how the patroon always does something right away. He always knows that something is to be done and just what it is. He never waits a minute. The governor always puts things off.”