"I don't know. I didn't see him, confound the fellow! Just my luck! And it was my scheme!"
CHAPTER X
A SOFT ANSWER
There was no more sleep that night for any of the party. When Pratt's bruised head had been bathed and bandaged the three placed their chairs at the tent entrance, and sat in the still, warm air, discussing the situation more seriously than they had yet done. They had learnt definitely from the recent incident that at least two men were concerned in the campaign of petty annoyance. One of these--the man whose face Armstrong had seen in the thicket--looked like a foreigner, and apparently either lived somewhere on the island or had means of reaching it from the mainland. What more probable than that the second man was Rush, and that his boat was placed at the foreigner's disposal?
"The more I think of it," said Warrender, "the more likely it seems that Rush and one of the foreigners are playing some private game of their own. I haven't a notion what the game is, but I can't believe that Pratt's uncle left instructions to worry trespassers on an island that isn't his, or that any decent fellow in his secretary's position would encourage it."
"That assumes the secretary is a decent fellow," remarked Armstrong.
"Well, why not?" asked Pratt. "A man may be mad without being a fool, and my old uncle, though he's mad enough to hate English servants, wouldn't be such a fool as to engage foreigners without inquiring about their characters."
"That fellow Armstrong knocked down wasn't an attractive specimen," said Warrender.
"He was drunk," said Pratt. "Some of the most estimable characters--the most respectable of English butlers, for instance--may now and then take a drop too much."
"That fellow is a sot," said Armstrong. "It's marked all over him."