"He's not here, that's certain," said the sergeant at last, dashing the perspiration from his brow. "We must have overshot the villain somehow. Plague on it! We shall have to ride back to Truro and try to get on his tracks, or the Colonel will be in a rare passion."
"I won't ask 'ee to stay, brave men," said Doubledick, "knowing what terrible rages noble officers do fly into. But a nibleykin o' real old stingo won't do 'ee no harm, and ye can drink confusion to Boney. Hee! hee!"
All the soldiers accepted the liquor with alacrity, and the two who had already tasted its quality winked at each other, not acquainting their comrades with their previous pleasurable experience. Smacking their lips and declaring that the innkeeper was a real good-hearted fellow, they remounted and rode up the hill. Doubledick watched them until they were out of sight, a leer of triumph on his face. Dick heard him chuckle as he shut the door and shuffled up the stairs. The light was extinguished, and Dick, vexed with himself for remaining so long and so unprofitably, set off homeward in the track of the dragoons.
A few minutes after he had left, a heavily-cloaked figure—the same that Dick had seen a while before—stole down the steps at the side of the inn, and, looking round cautiously, approached the door and rapped six times upon it, pausing a brief while after every second tap. Immediately after the sixth, the casement above opened, and Doubledick, looking out, said in a hoarse whisper:
"Be that you, Zacky?"
"No, 'tis I, John Trevanion. Come down and let me in, Doubledick."
"Good sakes, I didn' know 'ee was to home, Maister John. Thought 'ee was still in Lunnon town. A pretty stoor there's been to-night. Bide a minute, sir."
He lit his candle, descended, let Trevanion in, and barred the door behind him.
"I never thought you were such a fool," said Trevanion, angrily eyeing the nightcapped and nightgowned innkeeper. "What on earth possessed you to harbour Delarousse?"
"Chok' it all, why shouldn't I?" replied Doubledick truculently. "Bean't he a good friend of ourn? Who better?"