Throughout the night, Evelina and Bandolin had slowly followed the dirt road, taking care to make sure the hobbit party had not left the mainway. Only the first light of dawn was being painted upon the clouds as they crept round a clump of trees and spotted the comfortable inn where the troop of hobbits lay snoozing peacefully. An early bird sang a short tune before flying towards the rising sun, and his abscence made the morning seem even more quiet and still than before. Evelina was sore, tired, and unhappy. The last thing she needed was for Jasper to have been caught; the lady Bandit had a nasty feeling he would easily squeal about her own participation in the attack, and she knew the hobbits would be none too happy about it. Although she had warned her
accomplices not to cause any serious damage, Evelina had noticed Jasper clubbing one fat hobbit in the head before running off.
With a grimace, she stopped and caught Bandolin’s shoulder.
“Stay here,” she whispered. “I’ll go inside the inn and try to find out from the
innkeeper whether or not Jasper has been caught. The whole town will be buzzing about it if he is. And do not move,” she added sternly and Bandolin nodded his assent grumpily. Why was it Evelina got to go into the inn where there was food? Their spoils from the basket had run out sometime during the night, and candy was none too filling.
Before starting their hunt, Evelina had shed the red dress, knowing it would be a dead give away should they be spotted by any of the local shirrifs, and she also took care to pull her dark hair into a bun. Though she was dirty, Evelina hoped she would not attract too much attention. Carefully, she pushed open the wooden door and noted happily that the front desk was empty. The common room was also quiet; then again, it was rather early. Evelina took a seat by the doorway and waited for someone to arrive.
It took not long, really just a few minutes, for an echoing patter of footsteps to announce to the Bandit that at least one inhabitant of the inn was awake. The footfalls were rather hard for a small hobbit, however, but the mystery was solved as a tall man stooped under the low doorframe and a ray of light illuminated, for a moment, his rough face. Evelina caught her breath and let it out again with a slight
hiss, her face turning sour. When she spoke, however, her voice was sweet as sugar.
“Why, Jasper!” she exclaimed softly. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Jasper froze at the familiar voice, more threatening with the friendly tones than if she had yelled.
[ March 10, 2003: Message edited by: theWhiteLady ]
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