Jack Harkaway and his Sons Escape from the Brigands of Greece | Page 3

set off to considerable advantage.
Mrs. Harkaway was to go as Diana, the huntress, and Mrs. Harvey made Marie Stuart her choice.
Little Emily and Paquita went in dresses of the Charles the Second period.
These young ladies were escorted by young Jack and Harry Girdwood, who were richly habited as young Venetian nobles of the sixteenth century.
As they passed through the garden door a man stood in their path.
He wore a long serge gown, with a cowl, like a mendicant monk, and as they approached he put out his open hand for alms.
"Bother the beggars!" said Mr. Mole, tartly.
The monk shrank back into his cowl, and stood aside while the party went by.
The garden door was held by the maid servant while they passed on, and when they were out of hearing, she dropped a small silver coin into the mendicant friar's hand.
"There," she said, "I can spare you something, father, although those rich English cannot or will not, the heretics and pagans!"
The friar, who was seemingly an aged man, muttered his thanks, and the girl retired and closed the door, locking it behind her.
No sooner was the door closed than the mendicant monk whistled a low but very distinct note, and lo! two men appeared upon the scene.
It looked as though they had just come up trap-doors in the earth, so suddenly did they show in sight.
"Captain Mathias," said the disguised monk to the first who came up, "I have learnt all we wish to know."
"You have?" ejaculated, not the man addressed by the mendicant monk, but the other. "Out with it, then."
"Still your impatience, Toro, if you can.--"
"Bah!"
"Well, then, learn that Mole goes as--"
"Bother Mole!" interrupted Toro, harshly. "How does our great foe go?"
"Harkaway?"
"Yes."
"An English knight of old."
"It shall be my task," said Toro, "to keep up his character, and give it a realistic look by a hand-to-hand fight."
"Don't be rash," said the mendicant friar, "or you may chance to be beaten."
"I can risk my life on it."
"You have--you do; every hour that you live here imperils it. Did you see the party go?"
"I did," said Mathias.
The latter was no other than the captain of the brigands. Already they were upon a footing of equality, for the two adventurers had had opportunities, which they had not failed to seize.
They had courage, ready wit, presence of mind, boldness daring, and cunning, and so it fell out that they who had made the acquaintance of the brigand's gang under such very unpleasant auspices, became two of the principal members of it within a few days.
But to resume.
"Tell me, Hunston," said Toro, "does Jefferson go to the ball?"
"Yes."
"How disguised?"
"Julius Caesar."
The Italian said nothing, but his lips moved, and his lowering brow was as expressive as words could be to his old comrade.
It boded ill for Jefferson.
They had met in fair fight, and he, Toro, had been defeated.
That defeat was as bitter as gall to him.
He would be avenged.
And if he could not cope with the doughty Anglo-American, then let him look to it.
What strength and skill failed to achieve, the assassin's knife would accomplish.
"Did you see the girl that attended him to the gate?" demanded the mendicant friar, or Hunston, as it would be better to call him, since there is no further need of concealment.
"I did."
"And recognised her, Mathias?" he asked of the brigand captain.
"Yes; it is the pretty girl we stopped with her lover, the coy Marietta."
"Now that they are well off, we may as well set to work," said Hunston.
"Good."
Hunston threw back his friar's cowl and produced a key.
"They have had many a good hunt for this," he said, with his old sinister laugh,
"I dare say."
"It was a lucky thing that the dainty little Marietta dropped it."
"Yes, it makes matters much easier for us to begin with."
The door yielded to the touch of the sham mendicant friar, and the three worthies entered the grounds.
Silently they stepped across a grassplot, keeping a thick shrubbery between them and the house as far as they could, when just as they gained the shelter of a trellissed verandah, a dog within set up a most alarming noise.
The three robbers exchanged uneasy glances.
"Curse the beast!" muttered Mathias the captain; "he will ruin us."
Toro got ready his long hunting-knife and looked about.
But the dog was out of sight.
A lucky thing it was too for our old friend little Mike, for a touch with that ugly instrument would soon have stopped his singing.
Now, just above the verandah was a half-opened window, and into this Mathias peered anxiously.
No signs of Mike.
A voice was heard now calling to the faithful guardian of the house to be silent, but Mike refused emphatically to be comforted; thereupon, the person very imprudently called the dog to her and tied him up.
This did not quiet him.
So the person in question tripped down the