I took care not to see any of the defences of the workshops, or those about the Château. These had been wholly reorganised since the attempts of January, and were now nearing completion on a far more serious scale.
I had to go back and I should assuredly be questioned. If I did not answer I might doubtless be suspected. Therefore it was arranged that when the time came for me to go Jack Jaikes should blindfold me and lead me out by the main fortified entrance of the works, which was immediately in front of a large post of National Guards.
I was longing to get Rhoda Polly by herself and hear the news from her own lips, but Dennis was so eager for more and more detailed gossip about this one and that other among the members of the Commune, that he detained me a long while. He did not fish for secrets nor ask me to divulge any of Keller's plans. I think he felt himself too strong and sure for that.
He was, moreover, genuinely interested in the men, and wishful to know how they conducted themselves in their new spheres. He was specially amused at my account of the staffing of the Post-Office-Without-Letters, and when he heard the names he instantly baptized it "The Bureau of the Incompetents"--a sobriquet which afterwards got abroad and became a saying, so that many of those who had earned the name left the place to escape from it.
At last Rhoda Polly and I did manage to take refuge up on the roof behind our favourite chimney-stack at a place where the parapet was almost breast high. It was comfortable hiding and quite secluded--the fortifications of the Château roof being long perfected, and indeed only to be used as a watch-tower or as a last line of defence.
Rhoda Polly told me how she had sent three messengers to Alida, of whom only one had been faithful to his trust. She had had to enlist Jack Jaikes in the business, and between them they had called up lads from the town, butchers' boys and such-like, known to the foreman from the Clyde. To each of these she had perforce to commit her letter, taking care that it should contain nothing compromising in case of capture. But only one ever returned with an answer, and he a little bare-footed rascal of a boot-black, from whom nothing had been expected. He had even brought back a letter from Alida, telling her friend that they were well but that for safety's sake Linn and she, with the two Tessier maids, had been taken into the main building of Gobelet, where at least they should be farther from the road and have men to protect them.