Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/159

 most certainly do if taken. We had agreed, moreover, on a password, which was Prosper the Bonaventure, so that I might challenge betimes any that I heard coming, and if they gave not back this countersign might know it was not Elzevir.

So now I reached out for the piece, which lay beside me on the floor, and scrambled to my feet, lifting the deckle in the darkness, and feeling with my fingers in the pan to see 'twas full of powder.

The lull in the storm still lasted, and I heard the footsteps advancing, though with uncertain slowness, and once after a heavy stumble I thought I caught a muttered oath, as if some one had struck his foot against a stone.

Then I shouted out clear in the darkness a "Who goes there?" that rang again through the stone roofs. The footsteps stopped, but there was no answer. "Who goes there?" I repeated. "Answer, or I fire."

"Prosper the Bonaventure," came back out of the darkness, and I knew that I was safe. "The devil take thee for a hot-blooded young bantam, to shoot thy best friend with powder and ball, that he was fool enough to give thee;" and by this time I had guessed 'twas Master Ratsey, and recognized his voice. "I would have let thee hear soon enough that 'twas I, if I had known I was so near thy lair; but 'tis more than a man's life is worth to creep down moleholes in the dark, and on a night like this. And why I could not get out the gibberish about the Bonaventure sooner was because I matched my shin to break a stone, and lost the wager and my breath together. And when my wind returned 'tis very like that I was trapped