Kitabı oku: «The Young Vigilantes: A Story of California Life in the Fifties», sayfa 6

XII
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

It was getting along toward the middle of the afternoon when the two newly fledged speculators turned their steps to the waterside, Bill to have his after-dinner smoke in peace and quiet, while scanning with critical eye the various craft afloat in that matchless bay. Something he saw there arrested his attention wonderfully, by the way he grasped Walter's arm and stretched out his long neck.

"Will you look! Ef that arn't the old Argonaut out there in the stream, I'm a nigger. The old tub! She's made her last v'y'ge by the looks – topmasts sent down, hole in her side big 'nuff to drive a yoke of oxen through. Ain't she a beauty?"

After taking a good look at the dismantled hulk, Walter agreed that it could be no other than the ship on which he and Charley met with their adventure just before she sailed. It did seem so like seeing an old friend that Walter was seized with an eager desire to go on board. Hailing a Whitehall boatman, they were quickly rowed off alongside, and in another minute found themselves once more standing on the Argonaut's deck. A well-grown, broad-shouldered, round-faced young fellow, in a guernsey jacket and skull-cap, met them at the gangway. There were three shouts blended in one:

"Walter!"

"Charley!"

"Well, I'm blessed!"

Then there followed such a shaking of hands all round, such a volley of questions without waiting for answers, and of answers without waiting for questions, that it was some minutes before quiet was restored. Charley then took up the word: "Why, Walt, old fel'," holding him off at arm's length, "I declare I should hardly have known you with that long hair and that brown face. Yes; this is the Argonaut. She's a storeship now; and I'm ship-keeper." He then went on to explain that most of the fleet of ships moored ahead and astern were similarly used for storing merchandise, some merchants even owning their own storeships. "You see, it's safer and cheaper than keeping the stuff on shore to help make a bonfire of some dark night."

"Don't you have no crew?" Bill asked.

"No; we can hire lightermen, same's you hire truckmen in Boston. All those stores you see built out over the water get in their goods through a trap-door in the floor, with fall and tackle."

It may well be imagined that these three reunited friends had a good long talk together that evening. Charley pulled a skillet out of a cupboard, on which he put some sliced bacon. Bill started a fire in the cabin stove, while Walter made the coffee. Presently the bacon began to sizzle and the coffee to bubble. Then followed a famous clattering of knives and forks, as the joyous trio set to, with appetites such as only California air can create.

Walter told his story first. Charley looked as black as a thundercloud, as Ramon's villainy was being exposed. Bill gave an angry snort or grunt to punctuate the tale. Walter finished by saying bitterly, "I suppose it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Not quite so bad as that," was Charley's quick reply. "It's a pity if we three," throwing out his chest, "can't cook his goose for him. Bill has seen him. Didn't you say he gambled? Thought so. Oh, he won't be lonesome; there's plenty more here of that stripe. Gamblers, thieves, and sharks own the town. They do. It ain't safe to be out late nights alone, unless you've got a Colt or a Derringer handy, for fear of the Hounds."

"The Hounds!" echoed Walter and Bill.

"Yes, the Hounds; that's what they call the ruff-scuff here. There's a storm brewing," he added mysteriously, then suddenly changing the subject, he asked, "Where do you hombres ranch?"

"Under the blue kannerpy, I guess," said Bill in a heavy tragedian's voice.

"Not by a jugful! You'll both stop aboard here with me. I'm cap'n, chief cook, and bottle-washer. Bill's cut out for a lighterman, so he's as good as fixed. Something 'll turn up for Walt."

"What did you mean by ranching?" Walter asked.

"This is it. This is my ranch. You hire a room or a shanty, do your own cooking and washing, roll yourself up in your blanket at night and go it alone, as independent as a hog on ice. Oh, you'll soon get used to it, never fear, and like it too; bet your life. Women's as scarce as hens' teeth out here. You can't think it. Why, man alive, a nice, well-dressed lady is such a curiosity that I've seen all hands run out o' doors to get a sight of one passin' by. Come, Bill, bear a hand, and pull an armful of gunny-bags out of that bale for both your beds. Look out for that candle! That's a keg of blastin' powder you're settin' on, Walt! If I'd only known I was goin' to entertain company I'd 'a' swep' up a bit. Are you all ready? Then one, two, three, and out she goes." And with one vigorous puff out went the light.

When Bill turned out in the morning he found Charley already up and busying himself with the breakfast things. "What's this 'ere craft loaded with?" was his first question.

"Oh, a little of everything, assorted, you can think of, from gunny-bags to lumber."

Walter was sitting on a locker, with one boot on and the other in his hand, listening. At hearing the word lumber he pricked up his ears. "That reminds me," he broke in. "Bright & Company shipped a cargo out here; dead loss; they said it was rotting in the ship that brought it."

Charley stopped peeling a potato to ask her name.

"The Southern Cross."

"Bark?"

"Yes, a bark."

"Well, p'r'aps now that ain't queer," Charley continued. "That's her moored just astern of us. Never broke bulk; ship and cargo sold at auction to pay freight and charges. Went dirt cheap. My boss, he bought 'em in on a spec. And a mighty poor spec it's turned out. Why, everybody's got lumber to burn."

Charley seemed so glum over it that Walter was about to drop the subject, when Charley resumed it. "You see, boys," he began, "here's where the shoe pinches. I had scraped together a tidy little sum of my own, workin' on ship work at big wages, sometimes for this man, sometimes for that. I was thinkin' all the while of buying off those folks at home who fitted me out (Walt here knows who I mean), when along comes my boss and says to me, 'I say, young feller, you seem a busy sort of chap. I've had my eye on you some time. Now, I tell you what I'll do with you. No nonsense now. Got any dust?' 'A few hundreds,' says I. 'Well, then,' says he, 'I don't mind givin' you a lift. Here's this Southern Cross goin' to be sold for the freight. I'll buy it in on halves. You pay what you can down on the nail, the rest when we sell out at a profit. Sabe?' Like a fool I jumped at the chance."

"Well, what ails you?" growled the irrepressible Bill; "that 'ar ship can't git away, moored with five fathoms o' chain, can she? Pine boards don't eat nor drink nothin', do they?"

"Who said they did?" Charley tartly retorted. It was plain to see that with him the Southern Cross was a sore subject.

"Waal, 'tain't ushil to cry much over bein' a lumber king, is it?" persisted Bill, in his hectoring way. "Down East, whar I come from, they laugh and grow fat."

"You don't hear me through. Listen to this: My partner went off to Australia seven or eight months ago, to settle up some old business there, he said. I've not heard hide nor hair of him since. Every red cent I'd raked and scraped is tied up hard and fast in that blamed old lumber. Nobody wants it; and if they did, I couldn't give a clean bill o' sale. Now, you know, Walt, why I never sent you nothin'!"

Walter was struck with an odd idea. In a laughing sort of way, half in jest, half in earnest, he said, "You needn't worry any more about what you owe me, Charley; I don't; but if it will ease your mind any, I'll take as much out in lumber as will make us square, and give you a receipt in full in the bargain."

"You will?" Charley exclaimed, with great animation. "By George!" slapping his knee, "it's a bargain. Take my share for what I owe you and welcome."

"Pass the papers on't, boys. Put it in black an' white; have everything fair and square," interjected the methodical Bill.

Charley brought out pen and ink, tore a blank leaf out of an account book, and prepared himself to write the bill of sale.

"Hold on!" cried Walter, who seemed to be in a reckless mood this morning. "Put in that I'm to have the refusal of the other half of the cargo for ninety days at cost price. In for a penny, in for a pound," he laughed, by way of reply to Charley's wondering look.

For a minute or two nothing was heard except the scratching of Charley's busy pen. Walter's face was a study. Bill seemed lost in wonder.

"There. Down it is," said Charley, signing the paper with a flourish. "'Pears to me as if we was doin' a big business on a small capital this morning. And now it's done, what on earth did you do it for, Walt?"

"Oh, I've an idea," said Walter, assuming an air of impenetrable mystery.

"Have your own way," rejoined Charley, whose mind seemed lightened of its heavy load. "Here, Bill, you put these dirty dishes in that bread pan, douse some hot water over them – there! Now look in that middle locker and you'll find a bunch of oakum to wipe 'em with. Walter, you get a bucket of water from the cask with the pump in it, on deck, and fill up the b'iler."

Under Charley's active directions the breakfast things were soon cleared away. Walter then asked to be put on shore, giving as a reason that he must find something to do without delay. "Whereabouts do they dig gold here?" he innocently asked.

At this question Charley laughed outright. He then told Walter how the diggings were reached from there, pointing out the steamboats plying to "up-country" points, and then to distant Monte Diablo as the landmark of the route. "There ain't no actual diggin's here in 'Frisco," he went on to say, "but there's gold enough for them as is willin' to work for it, and has sense enough not to gamble or drink it all away. Mebbe you won't get rich quite so fast, and then again mebbe you will. Quien sabe?"

"Queer sitivation for a lumber king," grumbled Bill.

"I didn't come out here to get rich; you know I didn't," said Walter excitedly, rising and putting on his cap with an air of determination.

"Easy now," urged Charley, putting an arm around Walter; "now don't you go running all over town in broad daylight after that fellow. Better send out the town crier, and done with it. That's not the way to go to work. Do you s'pose a chap in his shoes won't be keepin' a sharp lookout for himself? Bet your life. Yes, sir-ee! Now, look here. My idee is not to disturb the nest until we ketch the bird. This is my plan. We three 'll put in our nights ranging about town, lookin' into the gambling dens, saloons, and hotels. If the skunk is hidin' that's the time he'll come out of his hole, eh, Bill?"

"Sartin sure," was the decided reply.

"Well, then, Walt, hear to reason. Don't you see that if there's anything to be done, the night's our best holt to do it in?"

Walter was not more than half convinced. "Couldn't I have him arrested on the strength of the handbill Marshal Tukey got out, offering a reward, and describing Ramon to a hair? See, here it is," drawing it out of an inside pocket and holding it up to view. "I could swear to him, you know, and so could Bill."

"On a stack of Bibles," Bill assented.

"Let me see it," Charley demanded, rapidly running his eye over the precious document. "'Five hundred dollars reward!' Five hundred fiddlesticks! Why, he'd go five hundred better and be off in a jiffy, with just a nod and a wink from the officers to keep out of the way a while." Having expressed this opinion, Charley tossed the handbill on the table with a disdainful sniff.

Walter was dumb. He had actually thought for a whole month that the mere sight of this accusing piece of paper would make the guilty wretch fall on his knees and beg for mercy. And to be told now that it was only so much waste paper struck him speechless.

Charley again came to the rescue. "Come, come; don't stand there looking as if you'd lost every friend you had on earth, but brace up. If you'd wanted to have that robber arrested, you should have gone a different way to work – 'cordin' to law."

"What's to be done, then?"

"My idee is like this. Californy law is no good, anyhow. It's on the side that has most dust. But here's three of us and only one of him. We can lay for him, get him into some quiet corner, and then frighten him into doing what we say. How's that?"

"Capital! Just the thing. I always said you had the best head of the three."

"All right, then," cried Charley in his old, sprightly way; "I give you both a holiday, so you can see the sights. Walter, you take care that Bill don't get lost or stolen."

"Me take care o' him, you mean," Bill retorted.

Getting into the boat the two friends then pulled for the shore. Walter's first remark, as they slowly sauntered along, was: "What a wooden-looking town! Wooden houses, wooden sidewalks, plank streets. It looks as if everything had sprung up in a night."

And so it had. At this time the city was beginning to work its way out from the natural beach toward deeper water; for as deep water would not come to the city, the city had to go out to deep water. And as many of the coming streets were as yet only narrow footways, thrust out over the shallow waters of the bay, the entire ragged waterfront seemed cautiously feeling its way toward its wished-for goal. Cheap one-story frame buildings were following these extensions of new and old streets, as fast as piles could be driven for them, so that a famous clattering of hammers was going on on every side from morning to night.

The two friends soon had an exciting experience. Just ahead of them, a dray was being driven down the wharf at a rapid rate, making the loose planks rattle again. In turning out to let another dray pass him, the driver of the first went too near the edge of the wharf, when the weight of horse and dray suddenly tilted the loose planks in the air, the driver gave a yell, and over into the dock went horse, dray, and man with a tremendous splash.

It was all done so quickly that Walter and Bill stood for a moment without stirring. Fortunately their boat was only a few rods off, so both ran back for her in a hurry. A few strokes brought them to where the frightened animal was still helplessly floundering in the water, dragged down by the weight of the dray. The man was first pulled into the boat, dripping wet. Bill then cut the traces with his sheath-knife, while the drayman held the struggling animal by the bit. He was then towed to the beach safe and sound. By this time a crowd had collected. Seeing his rescuers pushing off, the drayman elbowed his way out of the crowd, and shouted after them, "I say, you, hombres, this ain't no place to take a bath, is it? This ain't no place to be bashful. Come up to my stand, Jackson and Sansome, and ask for Jack Furbish."

"Is your name Furbish?" asked Bill, resting on his oars.

"Yes; why?"

"Oh, nothin', only we lost a man overboard onct off Cape Horn. His name was Furbish."

"Well, 'twarn't me. I was lost overboard from Pacific Wharf. Jackson and Sansome! Git up, Jim!" bringing his blacksnake smartly down on his horse's steaming flanks.

XIII
IN WHICH A MAN BREAKS INTO HIS OWN STORE, AND STEALS HIS OWN SAFE

Walter's idea, as far as he had thought it out, was to hold on to this lumber cargo until Mr. Bright could be notified just how the matter stood. Should the merchant then choose to take any steps toward recovering the cargo of the Southern Cross, Walter thought this act on his part might go far to remove the unjust suspicions directed against himself. For this reason he had secured, as we have seen, a refusal of the cargo long enough for a letter to go and return.

Walter now set about writing his letter, but he now found that what had seemed so simple at first was no easy matter. As he sat staring vacantly at the blank paper before him, tears came into his eyes; for again the trying scene in the merchant's counting-room rushed vividly upon his memory. An evil voice within him said, "Why should I trouble myself about those who have so ill-used me and robbed me of my good name?" Yet another, and gentler, voice answered, "Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you." Compressing his lips resolutely, he succeeded in writing a very formal letter, not at all like what he had intended. But the main thing was to make himself clearly understood. So he carefully studied every word before putting it down in black and white, as follows:

"Mr. Bright,

"Sir: This is to inform you of my being here. I could not bear to be suspected of dishonesty when I knew I was innocent of wrongdoing. So I left. This is to inform you that the Southern Cross is in charge of my friend Mr. Charles Wormwood. You may recollect him. He is a fine young man. Between us, we've got hold of half the cargo, and I have the refusal of the other half for ninety days. The man who owns it has gone away. If you think it worth while, send directions to somebody here what to do about it. This is a great country, only I'm afraid it will burn up all the time.

"Your true friend,

"Walter Seabury."

While on his way uptown to post his letter, Walter heard a familiar voice call out, "Hi, hombre! lookin' for a job?" It was the drayman of yesterday's adventure, placidly kicking his heels on the tail of his dray.

Walter candidly admitted that he would like something to do. The drayman spoke up briskly: "Good enough. Not afraid of dirty hands? No? Good again. Got some plata? No? Cleaned out, eh? So was I. Say, there's a first-rate handcart stand, on the next corner above here, I've had my eye on for some time. More people pass there in a day than any other in 'Frisco. Talk biz. That comer has been waiting for you, or it would 'a' been snapped up long ago. No job less than six bits. You can make anywhere from five to ten dollars a day. Come, what do you say? Do we hitch hosses or not?"

Walter had a short struggle with his pride. It did seem rather low, to be sure, to be pushing a handcart through the streets, like the rag-men seen at home, but beggars should not be choosers, he reflected. So, putting his pride in his pocket, the bargain was closed without more words.

Certainly Walter's best friends would hardly have known him when he made his first appearance on the stand, bright and early next morning, rigged out in a gray slouch hat, red woolen shirt, and blue overalls tucked into a pair of stout cowhide boots. His face, too, was beginning to show signs of quite a promising beard which Walter was often seen caressing as if to make sure it was still there overnight and which, indeed, so greatly altered his looks that he now felt little fear of being recognized by Ramon, should they happen to meet some day unexpectedly in the street.

Walter ranched with his employer in a loft. With a hammer, a saw, and some nails, he had soon knocked together a bunk out of some old packing boxes. In this he slept on a straw mattress also of his own make, with a pair of coarse blankets for bedclothes. Another packing box, a water pail, a tin wash-basin, towel, and soap comprised all necessary conveniences, with which the morning toilet was soon made. The bed required no making. Rather primitive housekeeping, to be sure; yet Walter soon learned, from actual observation, that a majority of the merchants, some of whom were reputed worth their hundreds of thousands, were no better lodged than himself.

On the whole, Walter rather liked his new occupation, as soon as his first awkwardness had worn off. Here, at any rate, he was his own master, and Walter had always chafed at being ordered about by boys no older than himself. Then, he liked the hearty, democratic way in which everybody greeted everybody. It made things move along much more cheerfully. Walter was attentive. Business was good. At the close of each day he handed over his earnings to his employer, who kept his own share, punctually returning Walter the rest. "You'll be buyin' out Sam Brannan one of these days, if you keep on as you're goin'," was Furbish's encouraging remark, as he figured up Walter's earnings at twenty-five dollars, at the end of the first week.

"Who's Sam Brannan?"

"Not know who Sam Brannan is?" asked the drayman, lifting his eyebrows in amazement. "He's reputed the richest man in 'Frisco. Owns a big block on Montgomery Street. Income's two thousand a day, they tell me."

Walter could only gape, open-mouthed, in astonishment. The bare idea of any one man possessing such unheard-of wealth was something that he had never dreamed of.

"Fact," repeated the drayman, observing Walter's look of incredulity.

The restaurant at which Walter took his meals, until circumstances suggested a change, was one of the institutions peculiar to the San Francisco of that day. An old dismantled hulk had been hauled up alongside the wharf, the spar-deck roofed over, and some loose boards, laid upon wooden trestles, made to serve the purpose of a table, while the ship's caboose performed its customary office of scullery and kitchen.

The restaurant keeper was evidently new to the business, for he was in the habit of urging his customers to have a second helping of everything, much to the annoyance of his wife, who did the cooking. This woman was one of the class locally known as Sydney Ducks, from the fact that she had come from Australia under the sanction of a ticket-of-leave. She was fat, brawny, red-faced, and quick-tempered, – in fact, fiery, – and when out of sorts gave her tongue free license. The pair were continually quarreling at meal-times, regardless of the presence of the boarders, some of whom took a malicious pleasure in egging on the one or the other when words failed them. But it happened more than once that, when words failed, man and wife began shying plates, or cups and saucers, at each other's head, which quickly cleared the table of boarders.

Walter stood this sort of thing stoically until, one noon, when he was just entering the dining room, a flat-iron came whizzing by him, narrowly missing his head. The language that accompanied it showed madam to be mistress of the choicest Billingsgate in profusion. By the time a second flat-iron sailed through the door Walter was a block away, and still running. It was shrewdly surmised that man and wife had broken up housekeeping.

Meanwhile the search for Ramon was faithfully kept up, yet so far with no better success than if the ground had opened and swallowed him up. Nobody knew a person of the name of Ingersoll. No doubt he had assumed another less incriminating. A decoy letter dropped in the post-office remained there unclaimed until sent to the dead-letter office. "Fool if he hadn't changed his name," muttered Bill, as Walter and he stood at a street corner, looking blankly into each other's face.

They were taking their customary stroll uptown in the evening, when the big bell on the plaza suddenly clanged out an alarm of fire. There was no appearance of fire anywhere, – no shooting flames, no smoke, no red glare in the sky, – yet every one seemed flocking, as if by a common understanding, toward the Chinese quarter. Catching the prevailing excitement, the three friends pressed forward with the crowd, which at every step was visibly increasing. Upon reaching the point where the fire-engines were already hard at work, the crowd grew more and more dense, shouts and cries broke out here and there, lights were glancing hither and thither, and still no sign of fire could be detected. What could it all mean?

It meant that by a secret understanding among the firemen, winked at by the city authorities, the fire department was "cleaning out" the Chinese quarter, which had become an intolerable nuisance, dangerous to health on account of the filthy habits of the moon-eyed Celestials. The fire lads were only too willing to undertake the job, which promised to be such a fine lark, and at the first tap of the bells they had rushed their machines to the indicated spot, run their hose into the houses, and, regardless of the screams and howlings of the frightened inmates, who were wildly running to and fro in frantic efforts to escape, a veritable deluge of water was being poured upon them from a dozen streams, fairly washing the poor devils out of house and home, some by the doors, some by leaping out of the windows, and some by the roofs. Whenever one made his appearance, the shouts of the mob would direct the firemen where to point their powerful streams, which quickly sent the unresisting victim rolling in the dirt, from which he scrambled to his feet more dead than alive.

Meantime the Chinese quarter had been thoroughly drenched, inside and out, the terrified inhabitants scattered in every direction, their belongings utterly ruined either by water or by being thrown into the street pell-mell, and they themselves chased and hunted from pillar to post like so many rats drowned out of their holes by an inundation, until the last victim had fled beyond the reach of pursuit.

When the whole district had been thus depopulated the vast throng turned homeward in great good humor at having shown those miserable barbarians how things were done in civilized America.

Time slipped away in this manner, and gradually the edge was being taken off from the keenness of the search, though never completely lost sight of. Not a nook or corner of the town had been left unvisited, and still no Ramon. It was, even as Walter had first described it, quite like looking for a needle in a haystack.

One morning Walter was called to help Furbish move some goods from a downtown wharf to a certain warehouse uptown. The owner was found standing among his belongings, which were piled and tossed about helter-skelter, in a state of angry excitement, which every now and then broke forth in muttered threats and snappy monosyllables, directed to a small crowd of bystanders who had been attracted to the spot.

"There'll be some hanging done round here before long," he muttered, scowling darkly at two or three rough-looking men, each armed with a brace of pistols, who stood with their backs against the door of the building from which the man's goods had been so hastily thrown out.

This building stood on one of the new streets spoken of in a former chapter as built out over the water, or on what was then known as a water-lot. It seems that the title to this lot was claimed by two parties. The late occupant had taken a lease from one claimant for a term of years, and had built a store upon the lot, wholly ignorant that another party claimed it. He had punctually paid his rent to his landlord every month, and was therefore dumfounded when, late one afternoon, the second claimant, armed with an order of a certain judge and accompanied by a sheriff's posse, walked into his store, and after demanding payment of all back rents, which was stoutly refused, promptly ejected the unfortunate tenant, neck and heels, from his place of business. His goods were then thrown out into the street after him, and the door locked against him, with an armed guard keeping possession. This was the state of things when Furbish and Walter arrived on the ground.

"It's a wicked shame," declared Walter indignantly.

"Makes business good for us," was Furbish's careless reply. Then lowering his voice, he added, "Talk low and keep shady. Mark my words. There'll be hanging done before long," thus unconsciously echoing the very words of the dispossessed tenant.

Walter took the hint. He stared, it is true, but went to work without further comment, though he could see that the sympathy of the crowd was clearly with the unfortunate tenant. When the last load had been carted away, the crowd slowly dispersed, leaving only the surly-looking guards on the spot.

"Is all out?" demanded Furbish of the merchant, nodding his head toward the empty building.

"All but my safe. I want that bad; but you see these robbers won't let me in. It was too heavy for them to move, or they were too lazy, and now they won't even let me take my papers out of it. Curse them!"

"Got the key?"

"Oh, yes! That's all safe in my pocket. But what's a man going to do with a key?"

"You want that safe bad?"

"I'd give a hundred dollars for it this minute; yes, two hundred."

Furbish now held a whispered colloquy with Walter. "Do you think your friends would take a hand?"

"Oh, I'll answer for them," was the ready reply.

"Enough said."

A place of meeting was then fixed upon, after which the three conspirators went their several ways – Furbish to mature his plan of action, the merchant to nurse his new-found hopes, Walter to enlist his two friends in the coming adventure. Charley was in high spirits at the prospect. Bill thought it a risky piece of business, but if his boys were going to take a hand in it he would have to go too. Charley put an end to further argument by declaring that it was a burning shame if a man couldn't go into his own store after his own property, law or no law. For his part, he was bound to see the thing through. Walter stipulated that there should be no violence used, and that he should not be asked to enter the building if it was found to be still in the hands of the sheriff's men.

Just at midnight a row-boat, with an empty lighter in tow, put off from the Argonaut's side, care being taken to keep in the deep shadows as much as possible. Not a word was exchanged as the tow was quietly brought to the place agreed upon, where it lay completely hidden from curious eyes, if any such had been abroad at that hour. As the lighter lightly grazed the wharf a dark figure stole cautiously out from the shadow cast by a neighboring warehouse, and dropped into the hands stretched out to receive it: still another followed, and the party, now complete, held a short council in whispers.

Furbish had reconnoitered the store, finding only one watchman on guard outside. Yet he was positive that there were two or more inside, as he had seen a light shining through a crevice in the window-shutters, which suddenly disappeared while he was watching it.