The sight filled him with despair. The torch-bearers had anticipated him. They had already reached the front of the house, and the glare of their great flambeaux illuminated every object, as if a new sun had suddenly shot up athwart the sky!
There was no chance of successfully running the gauntlet under that bright flame: Smythje saw not the slightest.
He stopped in his tracks. He would have retreated back among the bushes, and there awaited the departure of the torch-bearers, but he feared that his retrograde movement would attract their eyes upon him; and then all would be over—his adventure terminating in the most undesirable manner.
Instead of retreating, therefore, he stood where he had stopped—fixed and immobile, as if pinned to the spot.
At that moment two figures appeared on the top of the stairway—in the brilliant light easily recognisable as the planter and his daughter. The maid Yola was behind them. Mr Vaughan had come out to give some directions about the search.
All three stood facing the crowd of torch-bearers, and, of course, fronting towards Smythje.
The planter was just opening his lips to speak, when a cry from the maid, echoed by her young mistress, interrupted him. The sharp eyes of the Foolah had fallen upon Smythje, whose wan, white face, shining under the light of the links, resembled those of the statues that were set over the parterre.
Smythje was among the shrubbery; and as the girl knew that no statue stood there, the unexpected apparition had elicited her cry of alarm.
All eyes were instantly turned upon the spot, while the torch-bearers, with Trusty at their head, hurried towards it.
There was no chance of escape. The unfortunate sportsman was discovered and brought broadly into the light, under the fierce battery of eyes—among others, the eyes of his lady-love, that, instead of expressing sympathy for his forlorn condition, appeared rather to sparkle with satirical delight!