“Ah, why!” echoed Santos, with a smile and a shake of the head; a suspicious tolerance, an ostentatious truce, upon his parchment face. And already he was sufficiently relieved to suck his cigarette alight again.
“You know why,” I said, trusting to bluff honesty with the one of them who was not rotten to the core: “because I still meant escaping.”
“And then what?” asked Rattray fiercely.
“You had given me my chance,” I said; “I hould have given you yours.”
“You would, would you? Very kind of you, Mr. Cole!”
“Then wait - hide - watch my light. When you see it back in the window, watch with all your eyes! I am going to write and then throw it out. Not another syllable!”
She was gone; there was a long yellow slit in the masonry once more; her light burnt faint and far within.
I retreated among some bushes and kept watch.