Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/116

 he had come; and a comic song of Jevons's, struck up that moment to his own vile accompaniment, was cut short in the very first bar.

Irralie now knew where the watchers were spending the night; but she was curious to discover of whom exactly the guard consisted, and whether music was its only joy. To peer through the passage and door by which the Englishman had come out and gone in again would, however, be rash, since the yard afforded no sort of cover. But there was the door at which Irralie herself had stood and looked upon the pines; she could therefore stand among the pines and look in at this door. And in two minutes' time she was actually doing so; nor had a twig cracked or a wire jingled on the way.

The door was wide open, but Irralie was too far from it to see very much of the lamp-lit room within; but she saw young Hodding, sprawled across a desk and fast asleep, and that half of the piano on the top of