"I doubt not he saw us," retained my patron. "But he probably kept well hidden. Is everything ready? Is Captain St. Croix here?"
"Yes, and most of his crew within calling distance," returned the steel-jawed man, casting a look over his shoulder.
I saw no door, or anything that would suggest that there was an adjoining room, for the one we were in occupied the whole ground-floor of the house; but behind De Rembolez was a tall oak cupboard that reached almost to the ceiling. There had come a lull in our conversation; De Senez and the host of the Gloucester Arms were talking in whispers, and Monsieur de Brissac was engaged in pulling off his heavy riding-boots. All at once the low grumbling of men's voices in talk was heard, and then an oath in good seafaring English issued apparently from the tall cupboard. I fairly jumped as the door of it was opened outward and a great, black-whiskered man stepped out of it. Then I saw where the smell of tobacco came from, for the smoke rolled out with him, and the ember in his long clay pipe was glowing.
ASTONISHED, I LOOKED PAST HIM, AND SAW THAT THE CUPBOARD CONCEALED A GOOD-SIZED TRAP-DOOR.
Astonished, I looked past him, and saw that the cupboard concealed a good-sized trap-door; it was open, the top of a ladder extended through the floor, and the sound of voices came from below. It was a most ingenious idea. The cellar to which this passageway led was not under the house, but under the garden at the back of it. The floor of the room in which we were was made of hard, dry earth, and digging there would have revealed nothing.
I found out, by questioning afterwards on the voyage over, that the two other houses which abutted on the innocent-looking garden also had passageways that led to the cleverly concealed smugglers' cabin.
The bewhiskered man was addressed by the company as Captain St. Croix, but I would bet a new anchor to a ship's biscuit that he was more English than French, although his accent was fairly good.
"It looks the night for our purpose, gentlemen," he said. "We have brewed a punch below. What say you I send for some of it, and we will pledge a successful passage to the Hirondelle, eh?"
"And destruction to the Corsican upstart," put in he of the beady eyes.