the woods toward the little pavilion where I had seen and heard so many queer things. But here, for the second time that evening, all was changed. The door of the little house was wide open. Inside it was dark as death. More than that, I had not taken twenty steps on my way home through the thicket when I came across something which I had heard of before, but the recollection of which had gone clean out of my head. It was a red lantern swinging at the branch of a tree.
"Halloa!" said I, and I suppose that I spoke aloud, "so here's the lantern you asked after, my friend—and red too. Well, if I know any thing of that color, it means danger."
Now, I'm not a timid man, but when you speak to yourself, believing there's no one within a mile of you, it does give you a start to get an answer. And the words were scarce off my lips when some one in the wood at my right hand called out to me, and in good English too;
"Yes, that means danger, Bigg."
"Who the devil are you?" said I, turning round sudden, but seeing nobody.
"I'm from across the Channel—but not on your job, Bigg, so don't trouble yourself. It's the Comte de Faugère I'd be glad to shake hands with."
Saying this, a little man dressed in a bowler hat and a short black coat sprang out of the thicket and faced me. I guessed how things stood in a minute—detective was written all over his face.
