"Good."

Hunston threw back his friar's cowl and produced a key.

"They have had many a good hunt for this," he said, with his old
sinister laugh,

"I dare say."

"It was a lucky thing that the dainty little Marietta dropped it."

"Yes, it makes matters much easier for us to begin with."

The door yielded to the touch of the sham mendicant friar, and the
three worthies entered the grounds.

Silently they stepped across a grassplot, keeping a thick shrubbery
between them and the house as far as they could, when just as they
gained the shelter of a trellissed verandah, a dog within set up a most
alarming noise.

The three robbers exchanged uneasy glances.

"Curse the beast!" muttered Mathias the captain; "he will ruin us."

Toro got ready his long hunting-knife and looked about.

But the dog was out of sight.

A lucky thing it was too for our old friend little Mike, for a touch