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Wutzler, red with excitement, came and went like an anxious waiter, bringing in the feast. "Here iss not moch," he repeated sadly. But there were bits of pig-skin stewed in oil; bean-cakes; steaming buns of wheat-flour, stuffed with dice of fat pork and lumps of sugar; three-cornered rice puddings, no-me boiled in plantain-leaf wrappers; with the last of the whiskey, in green cups.
The Sword-Pen had written something in the dark. "I go find out"; and Wutzler was away, as keen as a village gossip. "Trouble's comin'," Nesbit asserted glibly. "There's politics afloat. But I don't care." He stretched his arms, with a weary howl. "That's the first yawn I've done to-night. Trouble keeps, worse luck. I'm off seek my downy."
He handed a note to his master, who snatched it as though glad of the interruption, bent under the lamp, and scowled. The writing was in a crabbed, antique German character: "Please to see bearer, in bad clothes but urgent. We are all in danger. Um Gottes willen " It straggled off, illegible. The signature, "Otto Wutzler," ran frantically into a blot. "Can do," said Heywood.
"Eat it," he whispered, "whether you can or not! Pleases the old one, no bounds. We're his only visitors " "Here iss not moch whiskey." Wutzler came shambling in, held a bottle against the light, and squinted ruefully at the yellow dregs. "I will gif you a kong full, but I haf not." He dodged out again.
Wutzler, crawling out from the jars, scrambled joyfully up the bank. "You have killed him?" quavered the dry little voice. "You are very brave!" "No, no," cried Rudolph, earnestly. "He was, already." By the scarlet headgear, and a white symbol on the back of his jacket, the man at their feet was one of the musketeers.
The flare of Heywood's match revealed a heavy wooden door, which he hammered with his fist. After a time, a disgruntled voice within snarled something in the vernacular. Heywood laughed. "Ai-yah! Who's afraid? Wutzler, you old pirate, open up!"
"The doctor's right, of course," he answered. "I wish my wife weren't coming back." "Dey are a remember," ventured Wutzler, timidly. "A warnung." The others, as though it had been a point of custom, ignored him. All stared down, musing, at the vacant stones. "Then the concert's off to-morrow night," mocked Heywood, with an unpleasant laugh. "On the contrary."
"I've a great mind, myself, to run after the bounder and kick him. But that sort of thing you did enough. Who'd have thought? You young spitfire! Chantel took you on, exactly as he wanted." The fat sleeper continued to snore. Wutzler came slinking back from his refuge in the shadows. "It iss zo badt!" he whined, gulping nervously. "It iss zo badt!" "Right you are," said Heywood.
"Run, quick," panted Wutzler, pushing him aside. "To the left, into the go-down. Here they are! To your left!" And with the words, he bounded off to the right, firing his gun to confuse the chase. Rudolph obeyed, and, running at top speed, dimly understood that he had doubled round a squad of grunting runners, whose bare feet pattered close by him in the smoke.
"Ma Tonkikí, ma Tonkikí, ma Tonkinoise, Yen a d'autr's qui m' font les doux yeux, Mais c'est ell' que j'aim' le mieux!" The new recruit joined them, awkwardly. "Wutzler was missing last night," said Heywood, lazily. He had finished breakfast, and lighted a short, fat, glossy pipe. "Just occurred to me. We must have a look in on him. Poor old Wutz, he's getting worse and worse.
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