"All right, sir," replied Jesse. "Now that you and Miss Nance are back, sir, I guess the sooner we get rid of the Marquis the better."
Jesse carried the bill to the Marquis, then came down and went to the barn to harness the horse. A little later he drove round to the courtyard, hitched the horse to a ring in the Red Oak, and ran upstairs to fetch the Marquis's boxes.
Perhaps half-an-hour had passed when he returned to Dan in the Bar. "The old gentleman's gone, sir," he said.
"Don't know, sir," Jesse replied. "To the schooner, I guess. He left this money on his dressing-bureau."
Dan took the gold which Jesse held out to him. "Well, well," he murmured, "quite on his dignity, eh? All right, Jess, take his stuff to the beach and hail the schooner. He will probably have given directions. I hope we've seen the last of him."
The Marquis's belongings were sent after him to the schooner, where, however, it appeared that they had not been expected, for it was some time before Jesse could obtain an answer to his hail from the shore, and still longer before he could make the men on the ship understand what it was he wanted with them. Eventually Captain Bonhomme had rowed ashore, and the Marquis's bags, boxes, writing-desk, and fiddle were loaded into the small boat and taken off to _The Southern Cross_.
It appeared from Jesse's report that the Captain had been sufficiently polite, and had attributed the misunderstanding of his men to their inability to speak English. They had not gotten their orders for the Marquis. He had asked no further questions about Monsieur de Boisdhyver or about his recent prisoners, but had feed Jesse liberally, and dismissed him, with his own and the Marquis's thanks.
"Well," said Tom, who had returned an hour before and had been exchanging experiences with Dan, "that seems to be the end of him for the present. I don't know that I did right in promising your French lady that I should release him, but there seemed no other way to make sure of getting you back."
"I am glad you promised," replied Dan. "It is a relief not to have him under our roof. For the last week I've felt as if the place were haunted by an evil spirit."
"So it has been, and so it still will be, I am afraid," was Tom's reply. "If there is treasure here, you may be sure that gang won't sail away without making a desperate effort to get it. I move that we beat them out by hunting for it ourselves. Why not begin to-night?"