From sheer frontier habit,
he laid his heavy revolver near at hand, and his old-time hunting
knife. "You see, you don't know what emergencies may arise," often
sagely observed Alaric Hobbes. "Thrice is he armed that hath two
six shooters and a knife!"
When half-past ten rang out from the old French hall clock at the
Banker's Folly, Janet Fairbarn, a gray ghastly figure, made her
last timid rounds of the lower part of the mansion. Her maids were
all snugly nested for the night. Simpson, the erring one, she
believed to be in close attendance upon that foreign heathen, Prince
Djiddin, in their second-story wing. Miss Nadine and her maid had
locked their apartments on departure, the Professor's study was
the only room open and vacant, and so with a last timid glance at
the darkened halls and great salons of the main floor, the Scotch
spinster retired to her rooms adjoining the Master's study and
bedrooms on the ground floor.
Minded to "read a chapter" and to "compose herself for the night,"
the housekeeper sat late rocking alone in her rooms, while the
hollow tick of the hall clock sounded doubly lonely in the cheerless
night. The modern castle's walls were proof against the wildest
rain and even the blows of a catapult, and so the dashing storm
never even stirred the heavy leaded diamonded panes. "Thanks be to
God, auld Andrew never ventured to cross on this raging sea! He'll
no be here the morrow, neither.
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