Sitting there, I must at last have fallen asleep, with my head upon the window sill; it was hours later when I awoke. The dawn was growing in the sky, and the boy still slept heavily. I gathered up the dishes silently, and crept out of the room, and put them back in some disorder into the larder; for to the consumption of that meal I meant to confess solely on my own account. Then I began to mount the stairs again, to get back to the room I had left.
I heard a noise above me in the house, and I knew instinctively that my uncle had been roused, and was coming down. There was no chance for me to hide, and above all things I knew that he would search the place from top to bottom until he found the intruder. More than that, the inevitable meeting must take place at some time, and this time was as good as, if not better than, any other. So I mounted the stairs, until at last I saw him on a landing above me, standing in the grey light of the morning, with a heavy stick poised in his hands, ready to strike.
"It's all right, uncle," I said cheerfully, "I was coming to meet you."
He lowered the stick slowly, and looked at me for a moment or two in silence; then I heard him chuckle ironically.
"Good-morning, nephew," he said; "welcome home again!"
CHAPTER IX.
A SHOOTING PARTY.
Now, my Uncle Zabdiel had known me always as something subservient to his will, and apparently anxious to please him; he was to meet me now in a different mood. As we stood facing each other, in the grey light of the morning which filtered through a high window on to the staircase where we had met, I was able to realise that he would once more play the bully with me, if he felt it possible to do so, and that it behoved me to get the upper hand at once if I would bring myself with any credit out of the tangle. So I spoke sharply after that first ironical greeting of his; I wanted the man to understand that he had not to deal with the milk-and-water boy he had known something over a year before.
"I want a word with you," I said, "and I'll say it where it suits you best to hear it."