When Sylvia and the Comtesse de Valorme had departed with Mynheer Van Ryk, Bevill--partly attracted by the beauty of the evening and partly because it was still early, and perhaps, also, because he knew full well that, after Sylvia's last words to him, there would be little likelihood of his sleeping at present--determined to remain outside the mansion for some time before attempting to obtain any rest.
Naturally--as, maybe, needs no telling--his steps were unconsciously directed back to the arbour in which their late conversation had taken place, and, as he approached the spot, the calm tranquillity of the night, the entire absence of the lightest breeze, forced itself upon his attention. Even, however, as this took place he recalled how Van Ryk had said that the wind was rising and rustling the bushes and long grasses; and, while doing so, Bevill wondered why the merchant should have given utterance to such a remark; for, as he thought upon the matter, he knew that no breath of wind had disturbed the air, that not the slightest breeze had blown that would have stirred a leaf.
His faculties aroused by all the necessities for caution which had formed part of his existence since he left England on the undertaking he was now about--faculties that had long since been trained and sharpened in his earlier campaigns--he stood gazing at the bushes and tall, wavy, Eastern grasses which surrounded the arbour, as though in them he might, dark as it was now, discover some natural cause that would have furnished Van Ryck with the supposition that the wind was rising.
Seeing nothing, however, that could suggest any such cause, he walked round those bushes and grasses to the back of the arbour and endeavoured to discover if the reason was to be found there.
At first he could perceive nothing in the darkness, while feeling gently about him with his hands and feet, as those feel to whom the aid of light is denied while they search for aught they may expect to discover.
But, at last, it seemed to Bevill that the grass behind the arbour was strangely flattened down longwise, and, pausing at this discovery, his sharpened instincts were soon at work wondering what this might mean.
"A large dog sleeping here might almost have made for itself a bed," he reflected, "yet there is no dog about the place, nor, even though there were, would it have lain so straight and long. What, therefore, may have done this? What? Perhaps a man."