CHAPTER XXV.

THE AMBUSCADE.


NIGHT came, and with it all black thoughts. Not that they were
black at once, any more than darkness leaps upon the back of noon,
without the intervening cloak of twilight. Oh dear, no! Simon's thoughts
accommodated themselves fitly to the time of day. They had been, for
him, at early morning, pretty middling white, that is whity-brown;
thence they passed, with the passing hour kindly, through the shades of
burnt sienna, raw umber, and bistre; until, just as we may notice in the
case of marking-ink; that which, five minutes ago, was as water only
delicately dirtied, has become a fixed and indelible black.

Simon was resolved upon the spoil, come what might; although his waking
sensations of buoyancy, his noon-day cogitations of a calmer kind, and
his even-tide determined scheming, had now given way to a nervous and
unpleasant trepidation. So he poured spirits down to keep his spirits
up. Very early after dark, he had watched his opportunity while Mrs.
Quarles was scolding in the kitchen, had slipped shoeless and
unperceived, from his pantry into the housekeeper's room, and locked
himself securely in the shower bath. Hapless wight! it was very little
after six yet, and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight
had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him.
But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit
back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with
exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is
failing him for fear.