Seeing my look, she seemed to watch me curiously, raising herself up, till she stood unsteadily by the wall. “When did you come in?” she said, meaning, I suppose, when did I join the gang.
“Last week,” I answered, swinging the door a little further open. Footsteps were coming rapidly along the road. I heard excited voices, I made sure that it was the search party going back to the schooner.
“Digame, muchacho,” she said in Spanish. It must have been some sort of pass-word among them. Seeing by my face that I did not understand she repeated the words softly. Then at that very instant she was on me like a tigress with a knife. I slipped to one side instinctively. I suppose I half saw her as the knife went home. She grabbed at the pocket-book, which I swung away from her hand. The knife went deep into the door, with a drive which must have jarred her to the shoulder. “Give it me,” she gasped, snatching at me like a fury. I dodged to one side, up the court, horribly scared. She followed, raving like a mad thing, quite ghastly white under her paint, wholly forgetful that she was acting a man's part. When once we were dodging I grew calmer. I led her to the end of the court, then ducked. She charged in, blindly, against the wall, while I raced to the door, very pleased with my success. I did not hear her follow me, so, when I got to the door, I looked back. Just at that instant, there came a smart report. The creature had fired at me with a pistol; the bullet sent a dozen chips of brick into my face. I went through the door just as the shot from the second barrel thudded into the lintel. Going through hurriedly I ran into Mr. Jermyn, as he came round the corner with the captain. “I've got it,” I said. “Look out. She's in there.”
“Who?” they said. “The thief? A woman?” They did not stay, but thrust through the door.
Mr. Jermyn dragged me through with them. “You say you've got it, Martin?”
“Yes,” I answered, handing him the book. “Here it is.”
“That's a mercy,” he said. “Now then, where's the thief?”
I had been out of the court, I suppose thirty seconds; it cannot have been more. Yet, when I went back with those two men, the woman had gone, as though she had never been there. “She's over the wall,” cried the captain, running up the court. But when we looked over the wall there was no trace of her, except some slight scratches upon the brick, where her toes had rested. On the other side of the wall was a tulip bed full of rows of late flowering tulips, not yet out. There was no footmark on the earth. Plainly she had not jumped down on the other side. “Check,” said captain. “Is she in one of the houses?”
But the houses on the left side of the court (on the other side the court had no houses, only brick walls seven feet high) were all old, barred in, deserted mansions, with padlocks on the doors. She could not possibly have entered one of those.
“They're old plague-houses,” said Mr. Jermyn.