The Indian signalled an affirmative, by spreading his fingers, and placing them so as to cover both his eyes.
“Does he appear to have come from a distance?”
The pantomimic answer to this was the right arm extended to its full length, with the fore finger held in a vertical position—the hand being then drawn slowly in towards the body.
The horseman had come from a distance—a fact that the Indian had deduced from the condition of his horse.
“As soon as you have stalled Hubert, show the stranger into my sitting-room. Be quick about it: he may not intend to stay.”
Oriole, leading off the steed, passed out of sight as silently as if both had been the images of a dissolving view.
“I hope it is one from London,” soliloquised the cavalier, as he entered the house. “I want a messenger to the City, and cannot spare either Dancey or Walford. Likely enough Scarthe’s coming down is known there before this; but Sir Marmaduke’s accession to the cause will be news, and good news, both to Pym and Hampden.”
“I shall not wait for Oriole to show him into my room,” he continued, after a moment’s reflection. “He will be in the old dining-hall, I suppose. I shall go to him at once.”
So reflecting, the cavalier entered the room where he expected to salute his nocturnal visitor.
Finding it empty, he proceeded to explore another apartment, into which Oriole might have ushered the stranger; and then another; and at last the library—the apartment habitually used by himself, and where he had desired his guest to be shown in to him.