"The house will be in utter darkness again ere long," he said to himself. "Ah, well! if I cannot thereby find my enemy, at least he cannot see me. And I can return and wait for him at the door I have but now made fast, if I find him not up here. There, he will not foil me."
As thus Bevill mused a step fell on his ear--a soft footfall, almost a shuffling, halting one--a step that, in its creeping oncoming, caused even creepiness to one so brave as he--a footfall that seemed ghostly in its lagging progress towards where he stood. Yet, as the sound of it approached nearer and nearer, he knew that, for the present, it was not to his interest to obstruct whoever it might be that drew near, but rather to watch, to follow, and at last bring to bay this nocturnal intruder.
The night itself aided him even as he drew back against the wall, for now the darkness was profound and, also, the rain beat down pitilessly on the great window; while the wind, risen once more, was again howling round the Weiss Haus. But ever still he heard--or did he feel?--that footfall drawing stealthily nearer and nearer to him.
At last Bevill heard something also--something he could not understand, something the meaning of which he could in no wise comprehend.
He heard a sliding noise upon the wall in a line with the spot where his face reached, and he fancied that it was varied now and again by something else which sounded like the light touch of fingers tapping on that wall.
"Whoe'er it is," he said to himself, suddenly recognising what that scraping sound, interrupted by an occasional touch on the wall, was, "he feels his way carefully. Let me be ready to greet him--ah!" he ejaculated, lunging out straight before him with his sword, though piercing nothing. "Ah!"
Fingers had passed across his face: an instant later something long and hairy had swept across his left hand, even as he lunged with his right: still a moment later the sound of a figure springing down the wide staircase fell on his ears; and, ere another moment had elapsed, he was springing after it.
But, even as he did go, he muttered to himself:
"This is not Francbois! He had no beard. Who, then, is it? Ah! Sparmann perchance!"