He walked out without waiting for an answer, and Francisco Alvarez was glad to see him go.  Five minutes later the Spaniard sent for Braxton Wyatt and the two remained long in consultation.

Meanwhile, something was stirring in the forest not far from Beaulieu.  It was a forest of magnolia, willow, and cypress, and of oaks, from which hung great solemn festoons of moss.  A deep still bayou cut across it, and here and there were pools of stagnant water, in which coiling black forms swam.

Night was deepening over the wilderness upon which the estate of Beaulieu had made only a scratch.  Pale moonlight fell over the drooping green forest and across the deep waters of the bayou.  The something that had stirred resolved itself into the shadowy figure of a man who came out of the heart of the forest toward its edge.  He walked with a singularly agile step.  His moccasined feet made no noise when they touched the ground and the bushes seemed to part for the passage of his body.

When the man reached the edge of the forest next to the Chateau of Beaulieu, he paused for a long time, standing in the shadow of the trees.  Always he looked fixedly at a single building, the log hut, in which Alvarez held his four prisoners from Kaintock.  While he stood there, stray rays of moonlight coming through the cypresses fell upon him, revealing a tanned face, yellow hair, and a tall, athletic form.  He did not look like a Spaniard or an Acadian, or one of the Frenchmen who had emigrated from Canada, or any kind of a West Indian.  His was certainly an alien presence in those regions.

The moon slid back behind a cloud, the silver rays failed, and the figure of the man became more indistinct, almost a shadow, thin and impalpable.  Then he bent far over in a stooping position, passed rapidly through a patch of scrub bushes, and came much nearer to the log prison.

At the edge of the bushes he stopped again and watched the prison for at least a minute.  Two soldiers were on watch in front of it before the single door, two soldiers in Spanish uniform, who were suffering from tedium, and who were quite sure, anyway that unarmed prisoners could not escape from a one-room building of logs with but a single door, secured by a huge, oak shutter, and two windows, each too small to admit the passage of a boy’s or man’s body.

The two soldiers slouched in their walk, and presently, when their beats met before the door, they let the butts of their guns rest on the ground, and exchanged pleasant talk about pretty, dark girls that they had known in far-away Spain.  One boldly lighted a cigarrito and the other encouraged by his example did likewise.  Hark, what was that?  “A lizard in the grass,” said Carlos.  “Yes, certainly,” said Juan.  They continued to smoke their cigarritos blissfully, and talk of the pretty, dark girls that they had known in far-away Spain.

As they smoked and talked, and found smoke, talk and company pleasant, they did not see a shadow glide swiftly from the bushes and pass to the rear of the log prison that they were guarding so well.  Nor could they see the shadow, since the building was now between them, resolve itself again into the figure of a man, who stood upright against the wall, his face at one of the little slits of windows.