g parties and surprises were no novelty and therefore no treat to
Raynal.

"It will be so delightful to see their faces at first sight of you. O
colonel, for my sake! Don't spoil it by going tamely in at the front
door, after coming at night from Egypt for half an hour."

Raynal grumbled something about its being a childish trick; but to
please Edouard consented at last; only stipulated for a light: "or
else," said he, "we shall surprise ourselves instead with a broken neck,
going over ground we don't know to surprise the natives--our skirmishers
got nicked that way now and then in Egypt."

"Yes, colonel, I will go first with Jacintha's candle." Edouard mounted
the stairs on tiptoe. Raynal followed. The solid stone steps did not
prate. The men had mounted a considerable way, when puff a blast of wind
came through a hole, and out went Edouard's candle. He turned sharply
round to Raynal. "Peste!" said he in a vicious whisper. But the other
laid his hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Look to the front." He
looked, and, his own candle being out, saw a glimmer on ahead. He
crept towards it. It was a taper shooting a feeble light across a small
aperture. They caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a small apartment.
Yet Edouard recognized the carpet of the tapestried room--which was a
very large room. Creeping a yard nearer, he discovered that it was the
tapestried room, and that what had seemed the further wall was only the
screen, behind which were lights, and two women singing a duet.

He whispered to Raynal, "It is the tapestried room."

"Is it a sitting-room?" whispered Raynal.

"Yes! yes! Mind and not knock your foot against the wood."

And Raynal went softly up and put his foot quietly through the aperture,
which he now saw was made by a panel drawn back close to the ground;
and stood in the tapestried chamber. The carpet was thick; the voices
favored the stealthy advance; the floor of the old house was like a
rock; and Edouard put his face through the aperture, glowing all over
with anticipation of the little scream of joy that would welcome his
friend dropping in so nice and suddenly from Egypt.

The feeling was rendered still more piquant by a sharp curiosity that
had been growing on him for some minutes past. For why was this passage
opened to-night?--he had never seen it opened before. And why was
Jacintha lying sentinel at the foot of the stairs?

But this was not all. Now that they were in the room bot