Page:'Twixt land and sea - tales (IA twixtlandseatale00conr).pdf/58

 of quarter-bags. This programme was breathed out at me through slightly parted, still lips; his heavy, motionless glance rested upon me, placid as ever, the glance of a tired manbut I felt that it was searching, too. I could not imagine what he was looking for in me and kept silent, wondering.

“I am asking you to wait for me in my house till I am at liberty to talk this matter over. You will?”

“Why, of course!” I cried.

“But I cannot promise”

“I dare say not,” I said. “I don’t expect a promise.”

“I mean I can’t even promise to try the move I’ve in my mind. One must see first h’m!”

“All right. I’ll take the chance. I’ll wait for you as long as you like. What else have I to do in this infernal hole of a port!”

Before I had uttered my last words we had set off at a swinging pace. We turned a couple of corners and entered a street completely empty of traffic, of semi-rural aspect, paved with cobblestones nestling in grass tufts. The house came to the line of the roadway; a single story on an elevated basement of rough-stones, so that our heads were below the level of the windows as we went along. All the jalousies were tightly shut, like eyes, and the house seemed fast asleep in the afternoon sunshine. The entrance was at the side, in an alley even more grass-grown than the street: a small door, simply on the latch.

With a word of apology as to showing me the way, Jacobus preceded me up a dark passage and led me across the naked parquet floor of what I supposed to