"Dorothy, I think I like this one less than the nasty gentleman, and if you'd listen to me...."
"What should we do, my lamb?"
"We'd harness One-eye' Magpie and go away."
"And the treasure? You know we're hunting for treasure."
"You're the treasure, mummy. And I'm afraid that they'll take you away from us."
"Don't you worry, my child. My four children will always come first."
But the four children did worry. The sense of danger weighed on them. In this confined space, between the walls of Hillocks Manor they breathed a heavy atmosphere which troubled them. Raoul was the chief danger: but another danger was little by little taking form in their minds: twice they saw the outline of a man moving stealthily among the thickets of the hillocks in the dusk.
On the 30th of June, Dorothy begged Raoul to give all his staff a holiday next day. It was the day of the great religious fête at Clisson. Three of the stoutest of the servants, armed with guns, were ordered to come back surreptitiously at four in the afternoon and wait near a little inn, Masson Inn, a quarter of a mile from the Manor.
Next day Dorothy seemed in higher spirits than ever. She danced jigs in the court-yard and sang English songs. She sang others in the boat, in which she had asked Raoul to row her, and then behaved so wildly, that several times they just missed capsizing. In this way it came about that in juggling with three coral bracelets she let one of them fall into the water. She wanted to recover it, dipped her bare arm in the water as high as the shoulder, and remained motionless, her head bent over the lake, as if she was considering carefully something she saw on its bottom.
"What are you looking at like that?" said Raoul.