Perhaps the journey had fatigued the man as much as the boy. It is beyond question that the captain was asleep almost as soon as Bertie was.
But he did not sleep quite so long.
While it was yet dark he got up, and, having lit a candle, looked at his watch. Then he dressed very quietly, making not the slightest noise. He took his revolver from underneath his pillow, and replaced it in the top pocket of his overcoat. He also took from underneath his pillow a leathern case. He opened it. It contained a necklace of wondrous beauty, formed of diamonds of uncommon brilliancy and size. His great black eyes sparkled at the precious stones, and the precious stones sparkled back at him.
It was that necklace which had once belonged to the Countess of Ferndale, and which, according to Mr. Rosenheim, had cost more than twenty thousand pounds. The captain reclosed the leathern case, and put it in the same pocket which contained his revolver.
Then, being fully dressed, even to his hat and boots, he crossed the room and looked at Bertie. The boy was fast asleep.
"The young beggar's smiling again."
The young beggar was; perhaps he was again dreaming of his mother.
The captain took his Gladstone bag and crept on tiptoe down the stairs. Curiously enough the front door was unbarred, so that it was not long before he was standing in the street. Then, having lighted, not a cigar this time, but a pipe, he started at a pace considerably over four miles an hour, straight off through the country lanes, to Landerneau. He must have had a complete knowledge of the country to have performed that feat, for Landerneau is at a distance of not less than fifteen miles from Brest; and in spite of the darkness which prevailed, at any rate when he started, he turned aside from the high road, and selected those by-paths which only a native of the country as a rule knows well.
Landerneau is a junction on the line which runs to Nantes. He caught the first train to that great seaport, and that afternoon he boarded, at St. Nazaire, a steamer which was bound for the United States of America, and by night he was far away on the high seas.
Henceforward he disappears from the pages of this story. He had laid his plans well. He had destroyed the trail, and the only witness of his crime whom he had any cause to fear he had left penniless in the most rabid town in France, where any Englishman who is penniless, and unable to speak any language but his own, was not likely to receive much consideration from the inhabitants.