“Claire!” cried Standish in alarmed rebuke.

“It’s all right, Standish,” said Gavin.  “I know all about it.  A good deal more than she does.  And none of it from her, either.  We’ll come to that, later.  Now for the prisoner.”

Turning to the glumly scowling youth, he resumed: 

“How many of them are there in this merry little midnight murder party?”

“I dunno,” grunted the boy.

“Devil, is that true?” gravely asked Gavin, bending again toward Simon Cameron.

“Six!” babbled the lad, eagerly.  “Pop and—­”

“Never mind giving me a census of them,” said Brice.  “It wouldn’t do me any good.  I’ve left my copies of ‘Who’s Who’ and Burke’s Peerage at home.  And they figured Mr. Standish and Mr. Hade would both be here, to-night?”

“Most nights t’other one comes,” said the boy.  “I laid out yonder and heern him, one night.  Whistles like he’s a mocking-bird, when he gits nigh here.  I told Pop an’ them about that.  They—­”

“By the way,” asked Gavin, “when your Pop came back from finding the tunnel, last night, was he in pretty bad shape?  Hey?  Was he?”

“He were,” responded the captive, after another scared look at Simon Cameron.  “He done fell into the tunnel, arter he step down it.  An’ he bust hisself up, suthin’ fierce, round the haid an’ the th’oat.  He—­”

“I see,” agreed Brice.

Then, to Standish: 

“I think we’ve got about all out of the charming child that we can expect to.  Suppose we throw him out?”

“Throw him out?” echoed Milo, incredulously.  “Do you mean, set him free?  Why, man he’d—­”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Gavin.  “I agree with Caesar—­Julius Caesar, not the pirate.  Caesar used to say that it was a mistake to hold prisoners.  They must be fed and guarded and they can do incalculable mischief.  We’ve turned this prisoner inside out.  We’ve learned from him that six men are lurking somewhere outside, on the chance that you or Rodney Hade may come out or come in, so that they can cut you both off, comfortably, out there in the dark, and carry on their treasure-hunt here.  Failing that, they plan to get in here, when you’re asleep.  All this lad can tell them is that you are on your guard, and that there are enough of us to hold the house against any possible rush.  He can also tell them,” pursued Gavin, dropping back into his slowly solemn diction, “about this devil—­this ha’nt—­that serves us, and of the curse—­the voodoo—­he can put on them all if they try to harm us.  We’ll let him go.  He was sent on by the path because he went some time ahead of the rest, and he didn’t know the secret of the tunnel.  In fact, none of them could have known just where it ended here.  But they’ll know by now.  He can join them, if they’re picketing the house.  And he can tell them what he knows.”

Strolling over to the front door, he unbarred it and opened it wide, standing fearlessly in its lighted threshold.