“Wind in the bushes?”
“It may have been; but he says there was no breeze at the time.”
We resumed our seats.
“Bristol,” I said, “now that the danger grows imminent, doesn’t it seem to you foolhardy for us thus to expose ourselves?”
“Perhaps it is,” he agreed; “but how otherwise are we likely to learn what happened to Marden and West?”
“The enemy may adopt different measures to-night.”
“I think not. Our dispositions are the same, and I credit them with cunning enough to know it. At the same time I credit ourselves with having kept the existence of the steel traps completely secret. They will assume (so I’ve reasoned) that we intend to rely entirely upon our superior vigilance, therefore they will try the same game as last night.”
Silence fell.
The moon rays, creeping around from the right of the avenue, crossing the shrubbery and encroaching upon the low wall of the loggia, now flooded its floor. Against the silvern light, Bristol appeared to me in black silhouette. The breeze, too, seemed now to blow from a slightly different direction. It came through the windows on my right, beyond which lay the unkempt bushes which extended on that side to the wall of the grounds.
So we sat, until the moonlight poured fully in upon Bristol’s back. So we sat when the clock chimed the hour of one.