owing them as it were over hedge and ditch, and seeing them
safe through it in a manner most wonderful and pleasant to hear through
the open windows, on the terrace at night. Later still, I went to Mr.
Franklin in the smoking-room, with the soda-water and brandy, and found
that Miss Rachel had put the Diamond clean out of his head. "She's the
most charming girl I have seen since I came back to England!" was all I
could extract from him, when I endeavoured to lead the conversation to
more serious things.

Towards midnight, I went round the house to lock up, accompanied by my
second in command (Samuel, the footman), as usual. When all the doors
were made fast, except the side door that opened on the terrace, I sent
Samuel to bed, and stepped out for a breath of fresh air before I too
went to bed in my turn.

The night was still and close, and the moon was at the full in the
heavens. It was so silent out of doors, that I heard from time to time,
very faint and low, the fall of the sea, as the ground-swell heaved
it in on the sand-bank near the mouth of our little bay. As the house
stood, the terrace side was the dark side; but the broad moonlight
showed fair on the gravel walk that ran along the next side to the
terrace. Looking this way, after looking up at the sky, I saw the shadow
of a person in the moonlight thrown forward from behind the corner of
the house.

Being old and sly, I forbore to call out; but being also, unfortunately,
old and heavy, my feet betrayed me on the gravel. Before I could steal
suddenly round the corner, as I had proposed, I heard lighter feet
than mine--and more than one pair of them as I thought--retreating in
a hurry. By the time I had got to the corner, the trespassers, whoever
they were, had run into the shrubbery at the off side of the walk, and
were hidden from sight among the thick trees and bushes in that part of
the grounds. From the shrubbery, they could easily make their way, over
our fence into the road. If I had been forty years younger, I might have
had a chance of catching them before they got clear of our premises.
As it was, I went back to set a-going a younger pair of legs than mine.
Without disturbing anybody, Samuel and I got a couple of guns, and went
all round the house and through the shrubbery. Having made sure that
no persons were lurking about anywhere in our grounds, we turned back.
Passing over the walk where I had seen the shadow, I now noticed, for
the first tim