When once around the remote angle of the wall, Alphonse slipped aside into the forest, got rid of gown and basket, and moving through the wood, took up his station on the side of the main avenue of approach to the villa, and out of sight of the guards. Here he waited until a few minutes later he was joined by the captain.
Meanwhile I stood in the wood with Merton. I think he enjoyed it. I did not. A first attempt at burglary is not in all its aspects heroic, and I was wet, chilled, and anxious.
“First actor on,” murmured Merton. “Should like to have seen that interview. Can’t be actor and audience both.”
I hazily reflected that for myself I was both, and that the actor had just then a sharp fit of stage-scare. I let him run on unanswered, while the rain poured down my back.
At last he said: “I think Alphonse has had time enough.”
“Hardly,” said I. I did not want to talk. I was longing to do something—to begin. The punctual guard went by twenty feet away, the smoke of his pipe blown toward us.
“I never liked pipe-smoking on the picket-line,” said Merton. “You can smell it of a damp night at any distance. Remind me to tell you a story about it. Heavens!” he cried, as a flash of lightning for an instant set everything in noon-day clearness, “I hope we shall not have much of that. Keep down, Greville. Ever steal apples? Strike that repeater.” I did so. “It’s a good deal like waiting for the word to charge. I remember that once we labeled ourselves for recognition in case we did not come out alive. Just after that I fell ill.”
“Hush!” I said. “There he is again.”
“All right; give him a moment,” said Merton, “and now you have a full half-hour. Come.”