"Oh, it'll be my turn soon! Considering the intelligence of those scoundrels, there's no reason why they should go on missing me."
They waited an hour longer. Then Perenna opened a window and threw back the shutter.
"I say, Alexandre, perhaps you're not dead, but you're certainly very green."
Mazeroux gave a wry laugh:
"Upon my word, Chief, I confess that I had a bad time of it when I was keeping watch while you were asleep."
"Were you afraid?"
"To the roots of my hair. I kept on thinking that something was going to happen. But you, too, Chief, don't look as if you had been enjoying yourself. Were you also—"
He interrupted himself, on seeing an expression of unbounded astonishment on Don Luis's face.
"What's the matter, Chief?"
"Look! … on the table … that letter—"