“Rum old bird,” opined Killigrew, as they swung along in the darkness.  As they reached the cliff again something brushed through the bushes away to their right, but as they called and no one answered they concluded it was a fox or some other wanderer of the night and went on.  Further along still they came on a man leaning against a stone step that crested a wall they had to pass.

He did not move at their approach, and Ishmael touched him on the sleeve.

“Here, we want to pass, please,” he said.

“So you want to pass, do you?” said the man, with a slow laugh.  “You want to pass ...?  Well, pass....  I’ll not hinder ’ee passing here nor yet to a place that’s a sight further on....”

“Archelaus!” exclaimed Ishmael, peering into the darkness.  But the man had already moved off and was lumbering down the field, and the sound of his quiet mirth was all that came back to them.

“I really think sometimes that Archelaus must have had a touch of the sun out in Australia,” declared Ishmael as they mounted the stile after a brief awkward silence.

“If it’s only that ...” was all that Killigrew would vouchsafe.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.  Only you’re sure he wouldn’t do anything to hurt you ...?  He doesn’t seem to love you by all I’ve heard and seen since I’ve been here.”

“Of course not.  What an idea!  He does hate me pretty badly, I’m afraid, but I’m out of his reach.  Archelaus knows what side his bread is buttered; he has a well-paid job and wouldn’t do anything to upset it.”

“There doesn’t seem much love lost between you.”

“There isn’t.  I’m incapable of being fair to Archelaus, as he to me, the difference being that I admit it and he doesn’t.”

“I wonder what he’s up to now,” exclaimed Killigrew, looking back from the height of the stile; “there’s a light gleaming out.  Looks as though he were lighting a lantern or signalling with it—­”

“A lantern....”  Ishmael scrambled up beside the other and his voice was alert.  “Then perhaps there is something in this idea of the Parson’s.  I say, let’s follow him.  If he goes towards the wood it’s fairly certain he’s up to something, if it’s only wiring rabbits.”

“Isn’t it rather looking for trouble, old chap?” demurred Killigrew, who did not know the name of fear for himself but was conscious of some undefined dread that had stirred in him at the greeting of Archelaus.

“Better go back, perhaps,” he added; “they’ll be expecting us.  What d’you say?”

“That I’m going to follow Archelaus....  I’m about sick of him and his underhand ways.  You don’t know how he’s made me suffer in all sorts of little things this past month.  Talking to my own men at the inn and the farms, laughing at me.  Even John-Willy Jacka goes after him now, that used to be a youngster with me....  You can go home if you like.”

“Don’t be a greater ass than you can help,” advised Killigrew genially, and the two set off together for the point where the light had just flickered and gone out, as though the slide had been drawn over the lantern, if lantern it were.  On a dim stretch of road they made out a form that bulked like that of Archelaus; it was joined by another and then by two more, and all four set off towards the wood, Killigrew and Ishmael behind them.