“What sort of a looking man is he?”

“Short; thick-set; heavily built, as to body.  A full, coarse face; dark leathery skin; and eyes that are a match for the Evil One’s.  There is a deep scar across his left forehead, running past the outer corner of his eye, and ending against the cheek bone.  The lower lid of this eye is drawn down, and the inside turned out, showing its deep red lining.  There is another scar on his chin.  Two fingers are gone from his left hand, and his right hand has suffered violence.”

“He has evidently seen hard service,” remarked the stranger, and in a voice that showed him to be suppressing, as best he could, all signs of interest in the landlord’s communication.

“There’s no mistake about that; and if you could only see him, my word for it, you would fall into the common belief that blood lies upon his conscience.”

“I shall certainly put myself in the way of seeing him, after the spur you have just given to my curiosity,” said Col.  Willoughby, in a decided manner, as if he had an interest in the man beyond what the landlord’s communication had excited.

“Then you will have to remain here something more than a week, I’m thinking,” replied the landlord.

“Why so?”

“Captain Allen isn’t at home.”

There was a sudden change in the stranger’s face that did not escape the landlord’s notice.  But whether it indicated pleasure or disappointment, he could not tell; for it was at best a very equivocal expression.

“Not at home!” His voice indicated surprise.

“No, sir.”

“How long has he been absent?”

“About a month.”

“And is expected to return soon, no doubt?”

“As to that, I can’t say.  Few people in this town I apprehend, can speak with certainty as to the going and coming of Captain Allen.”

“Is he often away?”

“No, sir; but oftener of late than formerly.”

“Is his absence usually of a prolonged character?”

“It is much longer than it used to be—­never less than a month, and often extended to three times that period.”

Colonel Willoughby sat without further remark for some time, his eyes bent down, his brows contracted by thought, and his lips firmly drawn together.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said, at length, looking up, “for your patience in answering my idle questions.  I will not detain you any longer.”

The landlord arose, and, bowing to his guest, retired from the apartment.

CHAPTER III.