"The watch has been quiet," was the answer; "and there is little cause to keep the sleepers longer from their beds. Some vigilant eyes, like those of Reuben Ring and my own, had better be open until the morning; further than that, is there no reason for being wakeful."
Perhaps the borderer would have dwelt more at large on his own readiness to pass the remainder of the hours of rest in attending to the security of those who slept, had not another wicked glance from the dark, laughing eye of her who stood so favorably placed to observe his countenance, admonished him of the prudence of being modest in his professions.
"This alarm hath then happily passed away," said the Puritan, arising. "We will now go to our pillows in thankfulness and peace. Thy service shall not be forgotten, Dudley; for thou hast exposed thyself to seeming danger, at least, in our behalf."
"That hath he!" half-whispered Faith; "and sure am I, that we maidens will not forget his readiness to lose the sweets of sleep, in order that the feeble may not come to harm."
"Speak not of the trifle," hurriedly returned the other. "There has been some deception in the sounds, for it is now my opinion, except to summon us to the gate, that this stranger might enter--the conch hath not been touched at all to night."
"Then is it a deception which is repeated!" exclaimed Content, rising from his chair as a faint and broken blast from the shell, like that which had first announced their visiter, again struggled among the buildings, until it reached every ear in the dwelling.
"Here is warning as mysterious as it may prove portentous!" said old Mark Heathcote, when the surprise, not to say consternation of the moment had subsided. "Hast seen nothing that might justify this?"
Eben Dudley, like most of the auditors, was too much confounded to reply. All seemed to attend anxiously for the second and more powerful blast, which was to complete the imitation of the stranger's summons. It was not necessary to wait long; for in a time as near as might be, to that which had intervened between the two first peals of the horn followed another, and in a note so true, again, as to give it the semblance of an echo.
Chapter XI.
"I will watch to-night;
Perchance 't will walk again."