"Hah!"
"It is I," said a voice in his ear.
And looking up, he beheld the devil in the red feather.
"Mathias."
"Hush! I have to rejoin a lady now, to whom I am engaged for the dance."
"The dance!"
Mathias nodded.
"She accepted at once a dance with the devil; I"ll lead her a devil of a dance."
And the brigand captain laughed hugely at his own conceit.
But Hunston was not in laughing humour.
"I"m glad to find you so merry, captain."
The Greek did not observe his gloomy manner; he only replied--"You will be merry, too, when I tell you the cause."
"I have no thought for the pleasures of these fools," said Hunston, gruffly; "I only think of business."
"I too."
"And yet you are going to dance, Captain Mathias."
"For business reasons, solely," said the Greek.
"Ho ho!"
"My partner is positively bristling with diamonds," said the brigand, significantly.
Hunston was interested immediately.
"Diamonds?"
"Aye! diamonds; and such diamonds, too. There is one as big as a nut, I swear."
"I must see this lady."
"You shall."
"Where is she to be seen?"
"Come with me," said the captain.
Away they went, squeezing through the crowds of dancers and maskers, until they came to the smaller ball-room, where a lady stood in conversation with a big man, admirably got up as a knight of the olden time.
The lady Hunston recognised at a glance, from the description which Mathias had given of her jewels.
Her finely-rounded arms were encircled by bracelets, set with the richest diamonds, that matched a necklet of priceless worth apparently.
She wore a tiara, too, of the same costly making and setting.
The dance began.
It was a waltz.
Now the gallant Mathias acquitted himself to perfection in the dance, carrying his fair and richly-attired partner through the crowded room without getting at all jostled by the dancers.
Hunston followed their movements with the greatest possible interest, and as they shot past him for the third time round the room, he contrived to take from the Greek captain"s hand one of the lady"s bracelets which he had with some dexterity removed.
The next round he was less successful.
As they shot past, the brigand"s hand was outstretched, but Hunston missed it, and a glittering object dropped to the floor. Hunston stooped to recover it, when--
"The lady has dropped something," said a voice in his ear.
"What lady?" he demanded, recovering himself quickly,
"The contessa."
"Ah! I see. But was it the contessa?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. It is the lady dancing with your half-brother."
"Eh!"
Hunston started a little after these words.
They sounded very unpleasantly in his ear.
He had evidently been a.s.sociated with Mathias by the speaker.
Now the latter was a strange-looking little being.
A stunted man, with broad, square shoulders, and got up to represent the description which Victor Hugo has given us of his creation of Quasimodo.
"That is the contessa?" said Hunston, recovering his presence of mind.
"Yes."