The fox-eyed American professor "invited himself"
to breakfast with Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken
old man.
"Never mind, we will finish up the 'History of Thibet' together,"
he cried, "when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house
will be much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the
way." But old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly
forbade all communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a
further personal loss, which he dared not explain!
"There was a suspicious French fishing-boat lately seen knocking
around Rozel," acutely said Alaric Hobbs. "We also found the bloody
trail where they dragged their wounded away down to the beach.
And so they are off on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one
knows the dead scoundrel up there."
"But we will finish the Thibet history, if I have to go out there
myself and get the honest information." Whereat old Fraser feebly
smiled and opened his heart to Alaric Hobbs at once. When a bustling
country magistrate arrived to potter around, Andrew Fraser was
astounded to see the General's aid-de-camp lead out the man whom
the two officers had guarded, and send him off to St. Heliers under
a military guard.
"Hold this man only as a suspicious person. There may be some
mistake. They say he is known at Rozel Pier as an honest man," said
the aide. "The real robbers seem to have escaped in the boat.
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