thin the hour."

As the door closed upon Tristram, Captain Salt advanced to the
keyhole and listened.

"A sound skin," he muttered to himself, "is better than a dull son.
Moreover, at the worst he'll be taken back to The Hague, and there
the Earl will keep him from me." He examined his pistols for a
moment, opened the door softly, and, creeping out on the landing,
began to listen with all his ears.

Meanwhile our hero marched downstairs, and, encountering the waitress
in the passage below, gave the order for the horses. The waitress
summoned a lethargic, round-bellied man from an inner parlour, who
bowed as well as his waist would let him, and straddled out to the
stables to repeat the order. Somewhat pleased to find he had not
been recognised, Tristram sauntered up the dusky passage and forth at
the front-door. As he passed out leisurably, he took careless note
of a party of three men seated a few paces to the right of the door
around a rough wooden table. On the other hand, the effect of his
exit upon this party was extraordinary. For a moment they gazed
after him, their faces expressing sheer amazement. Then they
whispered together and stared again. Finally all three stood on
their legs and buckled on their sword-belts. Two of them started off
to follow Tristram, who had by this time reached the street corner,
and was gazing up at the house fronts on each hand with rapt
interest. The third man waited until they had gone a dozen yards,
and then blew a whistle. In less than half a minute he was joined by
the man from the stable-yard, and after a short colloquy this pair
also linked arms and strolled up the street.

It was drawing towards sunset, and lights began to appear in several
of the houses as Tristram passed along. The few foot-passengers in
the street wished him "Good night" in the Dutch tongue, and he
answered their salutations amiably in English, guessing the good will
in their voices. He was greatly pleased, also, by the number of
villas and small gardens that diversified the houses of business,
each with a painted summer-house over-topping the wall and a painted
motto on the gate. He longed to explore these gardens and take home
to Harwich some report of the famous Dutch tulip-beds on which
Captain Barker was perpetually descanting. A row of these
garden-walls enticed him down a street to the right and out towards
the suburbs, where the prospect at the end of the road was closed by
a lo