They were nearing the place where the dovecot could be seen from the road and Captain Somerville pulled up. Gilbert and Jimmy got out quietly and looked over a gate into the strip of damp pasture in which the building stood. There was enough light to see its shape distinctly, standing as it did in the very centre of the clearing among the thorn-bushes. It was not likely that the thieves would use a lantern on such a night, and the two strained their eyes for the least sign of any moving thing that might pass by the foot of the bare walls. Macquean’s head came stealthily out from under the hood, as the head of a tortoise peers from beneath its shell. No sound came from the dovecot and Gilbert and Jimmy stood like images, their bodies pressed against the gateposts. Somerville, on the driving-seat, stared into the gray expanse, his attention fixed. They had drawn up under a roadside tree, for better concealment of the carriage. Macquean slipped out into the road, and, with a comprehensive glance at the three heads all turned in one direction, disappeared like a wraith into the night.
Presently, to the straining ears of the watchers came the sound of a low whistle.
‘There,’ said Speid under his breath, ‘did you hear that, Jimmy?’
The boy nodded.
‘Let Macquean hold the horse,’ burst out Somerville, who was rolling restlessly about on the box. ‘I might be of use even should I arrive rather late. At least, I can sit on a man’s chest.’
At this moment Jimmy looked into the back of the carriage.’
‘Mr. Macquean’s awa!’ he exclaimed as loudly as he dared.
Gilbert ground his teeth; only the necessity for silence stopped the torrent which rose to the sailor’s lips.
Speid and Jimmy slid through the bars of the gate; they dared not open it nor get over it for fear it should rattle on its hinges. They kept a little way apart until they had reached the belt of thorn-trees, and, under cover of these, they drew together again and listened. Once they heard a boot knock against a stone; they crept on to the very edge of their shelter, until they were not thirty yards from the dovecot. The door by which it was entered was on the farther side from the road, and the pigeon-holes ran along the opposite wall a few feet below the roof. Three men were standing by the door, their outlines just distinguishable. Jimmy went down on his hands and knees, and began to crawl, with that motion to which the serpent was condemned in Eden, towards a patch of broom that made a spot like an island in the short stretch of open ground between the thorns and the building, Gilbert following.
Now and then they paused to listen, but the voices which they could now hear ran on undisturbed, and, when they had reached their goal, they were close enough to the dovecot to see a heap lying at its foot which they took to be a pile of netting. Evidently the thieves had not begun their night’s work.