While Papa reads, the slumbering Franz begins to move and to mutter.
“Give me the file, Jim,” he says, in a low, cautious tone. “Curse the darbies—I—”
The sudden overturning of a stool, caused by a quick backward movement on the part of Mamma, drowns the rest of this muttered speech.
But the words have caught the ear of the colored gentleman, who moves a pace nearer the sleeper, and seems anxious to hear more.
While Papa still stares at the note in his hand, Mamma stoops and restores the stool to its upright position, making even more noise than in the overturning. And Franz turns, yawns, stretches, and slowly brings himself to a sitting posture.
Something like a frown crosses the dark face of Papa Francoise’s visitor. To bring himself face to face with Papa, and to satisfy himself on certain doubtful points, he has paused for neither food nor rest, but has followed up his discovery of the morning, by an evening’s visit to the new lurking-place of the Francoises,—for the sable gentleman, who would fain win the confidence of Papa in the character of body servant to Alan Warburton, is none other than Van Vernet.
Fertile in construction, daring in execution, he has hoped by a bold stroke to make a most important discovery. Viewing the events of the morning from a perfectly natural standpoint, he has rapidly reached the following conclusion:
If the fugitive Sailor and Alan Warburton are one and the same, then, undoubtedly, the message left by Mamma at the door of the Warburtons was intended for Alan. What was the purport of that message, he may find it difficult to discover,—but may he not be able to surprise from Papa an acknowledgment of his connection with the aristocrat of Warburton place?
To arrest the Francoises was, at present, no part of his plan. This would be to alarm Alan Warburton, and to lessen his own chances for making discoveries. He had found Papa Francoise, and it would be strange if he again escaped from his surveillance.