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

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 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