Then Pendragon broke into a scornful laugh again. “Gypsies!” he said; “they’ve been camping about here for about a week. Gentlemen, you want your dinner,” and he turned as if to enter the house.
But the antiquarian superstition in Fanshaw was still quivering, and he said hastily: “But, Admiral, what’s that hissing noise quite near the island? It’s very like fire.”
“It’s more like what it is,” said the Admiral, laughing as he led the way; “it’s only some canoe going by.”
Almost as he spoke, the butler, a lean man in black, with very black hair and a very long, yellow face, appeared in the doorway and told him that dinner was served.
The dining-room was as nautical as the cabin of a ship; but its note was rather that of the modern than the Elizabethan captain. There were, indeed, three a
