“I mean the man who haunted the grounds, sir, for days. He wanted to see the earl; and when, at last, he did see him, the earl went away to London or some other place. No, sir, I don’t like these blackamoors.”
“Too late,” said Ethan Carlyle, with a great feeling of weight at his heart.
“It would seem that we are to be disappointed in both quests,” said the captain, in a low tone. “The earl is gone and he has taken the paper with him. Perhaps it is even now in the hands of the British ministers.”
Then he turned to Simpson and Hall. “We may as well return to the ship. There seems to be nothing for us here.”
“There is the hall,” said Simpson, pointing toward the great white building whose top appeared above the trees. “I have no doubt but what there is rich plunder there.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Paul Jones, staring into the lieutenant’s sullen face through his puckered eyelids.
“Simpson is right,” said Hall. “We have taken this risk, and should not be asked to go back to the ship empty handed.”
“Who is it at the hall?” asked Jones of the old servant.
“Only the countess, sir,” replied the bewildered old man.
“Do you hear?” and the Ranger’s commander wheeled upon his officers with stormy eyes. “There is only a helpless woman then at the house. Are my ship’s company to turn buccaneers, indeed?”