orehead and the firm outline of its jaw and chin.
Indeed, I could hardly believe that the face belonged to a woman.
A slight darkening of the upper lip even suggested a moustache, but
on a second look I set this down to the shadow of the bed-canopy.

A round table stood at her elbow, with a bottle and plate upon it:
and in one hand she lifted a rummer to Mr. Rogers's health, crooking
back the spoon in it with her forefinger as she drank, that it might
not incommode her aquiline nose.

"Good health, Jack, and sit you down!" she hailed him, her voice
ringing above the others like a bell. "Tripe and onions it is, and
Plymouth gin--the usual fare: and while you're helping yourself, tell
me--do I owe you ten pounds or no?"

"That depends," Mr. Rogers answered, searching about for a clean
plate and seating himself amid the hush of the company. "All the
horses back?"

"Five of 'em. They came in together, nigh on an hour ago, and not a
tub between 'em. The roan's missing."

"Maybe the red-coats have him," said Mr. Rogers, holding out his
tumbler. "Here, pass the kettle, somebody!"

"Red-coats?" she cried sharply. "You don't tell me--" But the
sentence was drowned by a new and (to me) very horrible noise--the
furious barking of dogs from the stables or kennels in the rear of
the house. Here was a new danger: and I liked it so little--the
prospect of being bayed naked through those pitch-dark shrubberies by
a pack of hounds--that I broke from my covert of laurel, hurriedly
skirted the broad patch of light on the carriage sweep, and plumped
down close to the windows, behind a bush of mock-orange at the end of
the verandah, whence a couple of leaps would land me within it among
Miss Belcher's guests. And I felt that even Mr. Whitmore was less
formidable than Miss Belcher's dogs.

Their barking died down after a minute or so, and the company, two or
three of whom had started to their feet, seemed to be reassured and
began to call upon Jack Rogers for his explanation. It now turned
out that, quite unintentionally, I had so posted myself as to hear
every word spoken; and, I regret to say, was deep in Mr. Rogers's
story--from which he considerately omitted all mention of me--when my
eye caught a movement among the shadows at the far end of the
verandah.

A man was stealing along it and towards me, close by the house wall.

He reached the first of the lighted windows, and peeped warily round
its angle. This room, a