"What can you tell?"
"That the Englishman not there--that he taken away already, I think----"
"It is not so," a voice whispered close to his ear, yet one sufficiently loud to be heard by all. "It is not so." And, looking round, every one saw the dark, starlike eyes of Zara gleaming through the darkness at them. "He is there--but he will not be for long if you do not make haste."
From one of her hearers--from Beatrix--there came a gasp; from the rest only a few muttered sentences that there was no time to be lost; that they must attack the house at once, and call on the inhabitants to come forth and give an account of themselves. Then, once more, the order was issued for the cavalcade to advance. And silently they did so, Beatrix being placed in the rear, so that if any violence should be offered, or any resistance, she should not be exposed to it more than was necessary.
But there was little or no sign at present of the likelihood of such resistance being made. Instead, Desolada presented now an appearance worthy of its mournful name. For all was darkened in and around it; the windows of the lower floor, especially the windows of the great saloon, from which, or from its veranda, the light of the lamp had streamed forth nightly, were all closed and shuttered; nowhere was a glimmer to be seen. And also the door in the middle of the veranda was closed--a circumstance that certainly during the summer, would have been unusual in any abode in British Honduras.
All were close to the steps of the veranda now, and the officer in command of the constabulary, dismounting from his horse, strode up on to the latter, while beating upon the door with his clenched fist, he called out that he required to see Mr. Ritherdon at once. A summons to which no answer was returned.
"If," this person said, looking around on those behind him, and whose forms he could but dimly see--"if no answer is returned, we shall be forced to break the door down or blow the lock off. Into the house we must get."
"There is now," said Mr. Spranger, who had also dismounted and joined him, "a figure on the balcony of the floor above. It has come out from one of the windows. But I cannot see whether it is man or woman."
"A figure!" cried the other, darting out at once on to the path beneath, so that thus he could gaze up to the higher balcony. "A figure!" and then, raising his eyes, he saw that Mr. Spranger had spoken accurately. For, against the darkness of the night, and the darkness of the house too, there was perceptible some other darker, deeper blur which was undoubtedly the form of a person gazing down at them. A form surmounted by something that was a little, though not much, whiter than its surroundings; something that all who gazed upon it knew to be a human face.