“Will you follow me, sir?”

“Well, if you’ll have it so—­damned if I won’t!” cried Captain Plum.  He felt that he had relieved his conscience, anyway.  If things should develop badly for him during the next few hours no one could say that he had lied.  So he followed light-heartedly after the old man, his eyes and ears alert, and his right hand, by force of habit, reaching under his coat to the butt of his pistol.  His guide said not another word until they had traveled for half an hour along a twisting path and stood at last on the bald summit of a knoll from which they could look down upon a number of lights twinkling dimly a quarter of a mile away.  One of these lights gleamed above all the others, like a beacon set among fireflies.

“That’s St. James,” said the old man.  His voice had changed.  It was low and soft, as though he feared to speak above a whisper.

“St. James!”

The young man at his side gazed down silently upon the scattered lights, his heart throbbing in a sudden tumult of excitement.  He had set out that day with the idea of resting his eyes on St. James.  In its silent mystery the town now lay at his feet.

“And that light—­” spoke the old man.  He pointed a trembling arm toward the glare that shone more powerfully than the others.  “That light marks the sacred home of the king!” His voice had again changed.  A metallic hardness came into it, his words were vibrant with a strange excitement which he strove hard to conceal.  It was still light enough for Captain Plum to see that the old man’s black, beady eyes were startlingly alive with newly aroused emotion.

“You mean—­”

“Strang!”

He started rapidly down the knoll and there floated back to Captain Plum the soft notes of his meaningless chuckle.  A dozen rods farther on his mysterious guide turned into a by-path which led them to another knoll, capped by a good-sized building made of logs.  There sounded the grating of a key in a lock, the shooting of a bolt, and a door opened to admit them.

“You will pardon me if I don’t light up,” apologized the old man as he led the way in.  “A candle will be sufficient.  You know there must be privacy in these matters—­always.  Eh?  Isn’t that so?”

Captain Plum followed without reply.  He guessed that the cabin was made up of one large room, and that at the present time, at least, it possessed no other occupant than the singular creature who had guided him to it.

“It is just as well, on this particular night, that no light is seen at the window,” continued the old man as he rummaged about a table for a match and a candle.  “I have a little corner back here that a candle will brighten up nicely and no one in the world will know it.  Ho, ho, ho!—­how nice it is to have a quiet little corner sometimes!  Eh, Captain Plum?”