"To be trusted, let us hope," growled West. "I swear, Master Rumbold," and he glowered towards the wainscot, "your rats are the noisiest I ever heard."
Poor Ruth shivered with terror. She had but stirred to avert the worse crash of a slip she had nearly made in that cramped space.
"The vane atop of this roof, creaking in the wind," said Rumbold carelessly.
"If we should find these Rye House rats of the spy genus, we'll spit them on it," said West.
"And you along with them, Master Rumbold," said a voice which had not yet spoken.
A chest of tools.
"Your insinuations waste precious time, Sir Thomas Armstrong," said Rumbold, a frown of offended dignity puckering his brows as he turned and, crossing to the great oaken chest standing between the windows, raised its ponderous lid with both hands. "I would not be held a boaster; but those who have known Richard Rumbold longer than you have, will tell you that he is not the man to put his hand to the plough and draw it back. See," he went on, addressing the rest, who greeted his last words with a low murmur of applause, "here lie our tools," and he pointed into the open chest, "all in order; not forgetting the last cargo—muskets, bayonets, blunderbusses, and all."
CHAPTER XV.
THE PLOT THICKENS.
"Blunderbusses!" shrieked a voice, which seemed to retreat, as it spoke, into the room's remotest corners; "the gracious powers above! Mind, for mercy's sake, be careful. Not loaded?" piteously went on the speaker. "Say they're not loaded, Master Rumbold."