“Wishes my presence to appear quite accidental,” repeated Hibbs, gravely.

When the feverish Leveson had flashed off satisfied, Hibbs took a glass or two more of wine; feeling that he was going on a great diplomatic mission to please a lord. Then he went through the opening, picked his way down the stair, and somehow found his way out into the neglected garden and shrubbery.

It was already evening, and an early moon was brightening over the sunken chapel with its dragon-coloured scales of fungus. The night breeze was very fresh and had a marked effect on Mr. Hibbs. He found himself taking a meaningless pleasure in the scene; especially in one fungus that was white with brown spots. He laughed shortly, to think that it should be white with brown spots. Then he said, with carefully accurate articulation, “His lordship wishes my presence to appear quite accidental.” Then he tried to remember something else that Leveson had said.

He began to wade through the waves of weed and thorn past the Chapel, but he found the soil much more uneven and obstructive than he had supposed.

He slipped, and sought to save himself by throwing one arm round a broken stone angel at a corner of the heap of Gothic fragments; but it was loose and rocked in its socket.

Mr. Hibbs presented for a moment the appearance of waltzing with the Angel in the moonlight, in a very amorous and irreverent manner. Then the statue rolled over one way and he rolled over the other, and lay on his face in the grass, making inaudible remarks. He might have lain there for some time, or at least found some difficulty in rising, but for another circumstance. The dog Quoodle, with characteristic officiousness, had followed him down the dark stairs and out of the doorway, and, finding him in this unusual posture, began to bark as if the house were on fire.

This brought a heavy human footstep from the more hidden parts of the copse; and in a minute or two the large man with the red hair was looking down at him in undisguised wonder. Hibbs said, in a muffled voice which came obscurely from under his hidden face, “Wish my presence to appear quite accidental.”

“It does,” said the Captain, “can I help you up? Are you hurt?”

He gently set the prostrate gentleman on his feet, and looked genuinely concerned. The fall had somewhat sobered Lord Ivywood’s representative; and he really had a red graze on the left cheek that looked more ugly than it was.

“I am so sorry,” said Patrick Dalroy, cordially, “come and sit down in our camp. My friend Pump will be back presently, and he’s a capital doctor.”

His friend Pump may or may not have been a capital doctor, but the Captain himself was certainly a most inefficient one. So small was his talent for diagnosing the nature of a disease at sight, that having given Mr. Hibbs a seat on a fallen tree by the tunnel, he proceeded to give him (in mere automatic hospitality) a glass of rum.

Mr. Hibbs’s eyes awoke again, when he had sipped it, but they awoke to a new world.

“Wharever may be our invidual pinions,” he said, and looked into space with an expression of humorous sagacity.

He then put his hand hazily in his pocket, as if to find some letter he had to deliver. He found nothing but his old journalistic note book, which he often carried when there was a chance of interviewing anybody. The feel of it under his fingers changed the whole attitude of his mind. He took it out and said:

“And wha’ would you say of Vegetarianism, Colonel Pump?”

“I think it palls,” replied the recipient of this complex title, staring.

“Sha’ we say,” asked Hibbs brightly, turning a leaf in his note book, “sha’ we say long been strong vegetarian by conviction?”

“No; I have only once been convicted,” answered Dalroy, with restraint, “and I hope to lead a better life when I come out.”

“Hopes lead better life,” murmured Hibbs, writing eagerly, with the wrong end of his pencil. “And wha’ would you shay was best vegable food for really strong vegetarian by conviction?”

“Thistles,” said the Captain, wearily. “But I don’t know much about it, you know.”

“Lord Ivywoo’ strong veg’tarian by conviction,” said Mr. Hibbs, shaking his head with unction. “Lord Ivywoo’ says tact. Talk to him naturally. And so I do. That’s what I do. Talk to him naturally.”

Humphrey Pump came through the clearer part of the wood, leading the donkey, who had just partaken of the diet recommended to a vegetarian by conviction; the dog sprang up and ran to them. Pump was, perhaps, the most naturally polite man in the world, and said nothing. But his eyes had accepted, with one snap of surprise, the other fact, also not unconnected with diet, which had escaped Dalroy’s notice when he administered rum as a restorative.

“Lord Ivywoo’ says,” murmured the journalistic diplomatist. “Lord Ivywoo’ says, ‘talk as if you were just wandering.’ That’s it. That’s tact. That’s what I’ve got to do–talk as if I was just wandering. Long way round to other end tunnel; sea and cliffs. Don’ sphose they can swim.” He seized his note book again and looked in vain for his pencil. “Good subjec’ correspondence. Can policem’n swim?”

“Policemen?” said Dalroy, in a dead silence. The dog looked up, and the innkeeper did not.

“Get to Ivywoo’ one thing,” reasoned the diplomatist. “Get policemen beach other end other thing. No good do one thing no’ do other thing, ’no goo’ do other thing no’ do other thing. Wish my presence appear quite accidental. Haw!”

“I’ll harness the donkey,” said Pump.

“Will he go through that door?” asked Dalroy, with a gesture toward the entrance of the rough boarding with which they had faced the tunnel, “or shall I smash it all at once?”

“He’ll go through all right,” answered Pump. “I saw to that when I made it. And I think I’ll get him to the safe end of the tunnel before I load him up. The best thing you can do is to pull up one of those saplings to bar the door with. That’ll delay them a minute or two; though I think we’ve got warning in pretty easy time.”

He led his donkey to the cart, and carefully harnessed the donkey; like all men cunning in the old healthy sense he knew that the last chance of leisure ought to be leisurely, in order that it may be lucid. Then he led the whole equipment through the temporary wooden door of the tunnel, the inquisitive Quoodle, of course, following at his heels.

“Excuse me if I take a tree,” said Dalroy, politely, to his guest, like a man reaching across another man for a match. And with that he rent up a young tree by its roots, as he had done in the Island of the Olives, and carried it on his shoulder, like the club of Hercules.

Up in Ivywood House Lord Ivywood had telephoned twice to Pebblewick. It was a delay he seldom suffered; and, though he never expressed impatience in unnecessary words he expressed it in unnecessary walking. He would not yet send for the police without news from his Ambassador, but he thought a preliminary conversation with some police authorities he knew well, might advance matters. Seeing Leveson rather shrunk in a corner, he wheeled round in his walk and said abruptly:

“You must go and see what has happened to Hibbs. If you have any other duties here, I authorize you to neglect them. Otherwise, I can only say–”

At this moment the telephone rang, and the impatient nobleman rushed for his delayed call with a rapidity he seldom showed. There was simply nothing for Leveson to do except to do as he was told, or be sacked. He walked swiftly toward the staircase, and only stopped once at the table where Hibbs had stood and gulped down two goblets of the same wine. But let no man attribute to Mr. Leveson the loose and luxurious social motives of Mr. Hibbs. Mr. Leveson did not drink for pleasure; in fact, he hardly knew what he was drinking. His motive was something far more simple and sincere; a sentiment forcibly described in legal phraseology as going in bodily fear.