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A jangle of bells sounded through the storm. Glancing out Wargrave saw a curiously grotesque figure climb the verandah steps from the garden and stand shaking itself while the water poured from it. It was an almost naked man, squat and sturdy-limbed, with glistening wet brown skin, an oilskin-covered package on his back, a short spear hung with bells in his hand. It was the postman.
See what a gap!" I laughed in my sleeve and held my tongue. It was a frightful gap, to be sure, but not bigger than was necessary to admit of an oilskin-covered parcel, a pound at least in weight, a parcel full to the brim of treasonable matter, revolutionary pamphlets, regulations of secret societies, and what not. My John Dory was a horse of Troy in miniature.
The lock-keeper rushed out with a drag, under the impression that somebody had fallen into the lock, and appeared annoyed at finding that no one had. George had rather a curious oilskin-covered parcel in his hand. It was round and flat at one end, with a long straight handle sticking out of it. "What's that?" said Harris "a frying-pan?"
A low-crowned oilskin-covered hat, and a certain shiny deposit of dirt on the rest of the costume, as of tablets prepared for writing upon, suggested a calling that had to do with boats; but this did not help Tom's memory. "Sarvant, Master Tom," said he of the red locks, with a smile which seemed to break through a self-imposed air of melancholy.
Before we were half-way toward the bows we could see a dull light glowing from the forecastle-hatch, and a couple of dark figures standing in front of it, so that their oilskin-covered bodies stood out big and grotesque. That was our goal, I felt, and I knew that if we made a bold rush those two could easily be driven down, while I hoped that the others would be too much cowed to fight.
More than that, they were human bones; though whether the remains of one man, or of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what with a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, I can't undertake to say. When I got aboard again I opened the bottle, which was oilskin-covered as you see, and glass-stoppered as you see.
"The cavalry! the cavalry!" exclaimed a young man, who now pressed forward into the mêlée. He wore a long, loose civilian's coat, a small oilskin-covered forage cap, and had for his sole military insignia an embroidered sword-belt, sustaining the gilt scabbard of the sabre that flashed in his hand.
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