Jack Harkaway and his Sons Escape from the Brigands of Greece | Page 4

garden to see if there was really any reason for the dog's singular beheaviour.
In passing down the path she went so close to the verandah, that the skirts of her dress actually brushed aside the creeping plants which garnished the trellis work.
"Snarling, barking little beast!" quoth Marietta to herself, "and all about nothing; I wish they would lose him."
But when she got to the bottom of the garden and discovered the garden door open, she altered her tone.
"How very silly of me to leave the door unlocked," she said to herself. "Poor little fellow, poor Mike, I'm coming, good dog. Heard someone, I suppose. Good gracious, what's that? I thought I saw something move there. I'm getting as nervous as a cat ever since those men stopped us and made me kiss them, the beasts. Ugh I how I loathe them, although there was one of them that was really not very bad-looking. I wonder where that poor old friar went to. What was that? Oh, how nervous I feel. I wish they had left me some one in the house besides that old deaf Constantino; he's nice company truly for a girl. Bother the dog, what a noise he is kicking up."
And chatting thus, Marietta re-entered the house.
Meanwhile Mathias had clambered up the iron balcony and pushing open the glass door, or rather window, he entered the room.
It was the dining-room, and the remnants of a very sumptuous repast were yet upon the table.
"I'll just take a glass of wine."
He did, too.
He took several glasses of wine, and then, as the fumes of the good liquor mounted to his brain, he grew generous, and he lowered a bottle out of the window to his two comrades beneath.
Toro grasped it, and sucked down a good half of it before it left his lips.
Then Hunston finished it off at a draught.
When Mathias had regaled himself, he made a move to the door.
There was no one about.
Not a sound.
Now was his time.
His object was to explore the house, and ascertain in what particular part of it the cash, the jewels, and the plate were kept.
When they had secured these, they could content themselves for the present at least.
Firstly, therefore, he tied up the silver spoons and knives and forks from the dinner table in a napkin, and dropped the bundle into Toro's hat below.
Then he crept back through the room into the passage.
This done, he waited for a while to listen, and assuring himself that the coast was clear, he crept up.
On the next landing there were seven doors.
Six were shut, so he peeped into the seventh room, and just then he heard a noise below.
Someone coming up stairs.
What could he do?
He stole back to the stairs and listened. It was Marietta.
It was really a most embarrassing job now, for there was no retreat, so he crept upon tip-toe into the room, of which the door stood ajar.
It was a bedroom, dimly lighted by an oil lamp.
A cursory glance showed him that this room had only been lately vacated, and that one or more of the ladies had been dressing here for the ball.
Within a few feet of the door was a looking-glass let into the wall as a panel, and reaching from floor to ceiling.
Mathias listened in great anxiety for the footsteps on the stairs, and every moment they sounded nearer and nearer.
"I hope she will not come in here," thought the robber, "else I shall have to make her sure."
He showed how he meant to "make her sure" by toying with the hilt of his dagger.
Mathias crouched down, and crept under the bed, just in time, as the pert young lady skipped into the room.
Her first care was to turn up the lamp, and by its light she looked about her.
"I think they might have taken me to the ball with them," she said, saucily shaking her curls off her face. "I should have looked better than some of them, I'll be bound. I'm dead beat with fatigue. I've had all the work dressing them, and they are to get all the fun."
She was silent for some few minutes, and Mathias grew anxious.
What could be going forward?
He would vastly like to know.
Unable to control his curiosity, he peeped out, and then he saw pretty Marietta's portrait in the long looking-glass panel.
She looked prettier than ever now, for, shocking to relate, the young lady was undressing.
Mathias was not to say a bashful man, so he did not draw back.
On the contrary, he stared with all his eyes.
Pretty Marietta little thought, as she stood before the glass, that such a desperate villain was watching every movement.
Marietta, wholly unconscious that she was watched by the vile brigand chief, walked up and down before the glass, shooting admiring glances at herself over her white