So they waited, waited long, and still Hugh Rouse did not return.
The cause of this delay is briefly told.
Hugh, having stepped into a canoe, had, with a few long sweeps of his paddle, come to the Admiral; and the captive heard voices approaching the cabin door. At this he rose from the table, and, with an air still somewhat careless, yet of definite purpose, concealed himself behind the arras with which the walls were hung.
Once more the key grated in its lock, and Frazer heard two men enter the long cabin, which by now was enveloped in gloom. Seeming to stand near the threshold, while their eyes were probably accustoming themselves to the darkness, neither of these men spoke at first, but finally the prisoner heard one whisper to the other and, with a deep oath, advance farther into the room.
“He hides. Do you, Dyonis, guard the door.”
Harvie obeyed, while Rouse, growing more and more amazed, searched the cabin without success. He might have searched until the crack of doom and come no nearer to a trace of the cunning quarry.
For, even on their first entrance midway into the room, when Rouse had supposed that Harvie held the door, and Harvie that the captive must certainly be before them, the bird had flown. Softly, in that first moment, the heavy arras undulated, as though a breeze were passing across it from end to end of the apartment. Then, parting from the wall near the entrance, it fell flat again—a motionless, innocent piece of tapestry in darkness.
And, suppressing a laugh, Master Ralph lowered himself into Hugh’s canoe, to paddle away under the cover of evening.
After propelling the light craft silently for several minutes, he listened. An oath rang out in deep bass from the Admiral’s deck. Hearing this, he turned the prow of his canoe toward a narrow inlet, and entered on a winding forest stream. The moon, just rising above the trees, ensilvered his course with a radiance that found itself reflected yet more brightly in his youthful eyes.