“Can it be some one doing a little hill climbing on a bicycle?” was the big man’s silent question. “If so, he has an original turn of mind.”
But in a few moments more a shape emerged from the shadows, coming up the hill. It was a rolling chair; in it was a muffled figure and behind it laboured a squat, strong-looking servant.
“By Jove!” was Bat’s mental exclamation. “It’s the sick fellow from the inn.”
Upon reaching the crest of the hill the chair stopped. The squat servant spoke to the invalid inquiringly, but in a strange tongue.
“Lift me up,” directed the man in the chair.
The stocky one did as directed; the patient turned his face toward the castle, and his eyes remained fixed upon it for a long time. The breeze moved softly; there was scarcely a sound to be heard.
“He’s been here before,” mused Bat, from the shadow of the tree. “And it’s not been for air, either.” Then Ashton-Kirk and his array of pictured skulls occurred to the watcher, and he gazed at the peculiar frontal formation of the sick man with attention. “I wonder,” was his next thought, “how Kirk doped it out that this fellow was in on our affair? and I also wonder what a skull with a flat place in front’s got to do with it?”
After a time Bat saw that the pale hands of the invalid were moving as though he were fumbling impatiently with his wrappings. Then, for a space, he’d remain perfectly still; as the pale moon shone directly upon his face, Bat noted that his eyes during these periods of stillness were closed. But once more they’d open and again the wasted hands would begin to stir in the same impatient way. During the spaces in which the sick man sat with closed eyes, the watcher often saw his face twitch suddenly; and once he laughed out, clear and loud.
For the space of half an hour this continued; then there was a long period during which the sick one sat as though he were thinking. Then he spoke quietly to his servant; promptly the man lowered him to a reclining position, turned the chair about and wheeled it carefully away in the direction from which they came.
Amazed, Bat stood beneath the friendly tree.