other men coming,
but I will settle this one before they are here."

May instinctively ran to the gate. No sooner had she gained it than she
turned round intending to beckon Jacob to follow her to the house, and
to leave the wretched man without inflicting further punishment on him.
As she did so she saw Jacob lifting Miles on his feet. Scarcely was he
up than Jacob, telling him to defend himself, again knocked him down.

Jacob, as soon as he had done so, seeing that she had not reached the
house, again entreated her to hurry there.

"If you will go I will follow you in a moment," he shouted, "you won't
be safe till then."

As Jacob spoke she saw four armed men on horseback galloping along the
road. Believing that Jacob was following close behind her she rushed
into the house. He sprang toward the gate intending to defend it should
the horsemen, as he thought they would, attempt to enter. Had he
possessed any weapon he might have held his post, but in another instant
one of the horsemen dealt him a blow with the butt end of a pistol,
which laid him senseless on the ground.

By this time Miles had began to recover his courage, and one of the men
leaping from his horse helped him up. A gleam of satisfaction lighted
up his eyes as he saw what had occurred to Jacob.

"If it hadn't been for that fellow I should have kept the girl till you
came up," he exclaimed. "Let us make sure of him at all events, and I
will manage to get hold of her another time when there will be no one to
interfere."

Scarcely a word was spoken, the men seeming ready enough to agree to
what Miles proposed. A couple of leathern thongs were produced, and
some pieces of rope, and before Jacob recovered his senses he was bound
hand and foot, and lifted up in front of one of the men on horseback.

"We can do no more now, and the sooner we are away from this the
better," said Miles, "or some one will be down upon us, and we shall be
suspected of making off with the fisherman's son. I must be away over
the fields, and shall be down at the beach almost as soon as you are."

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

LADY CASTLETON.

Whatever resolutions Captain Headland might have made when he first went
to Texford, he had not been there long before he felt a strong
inclination to break them. Once or twice he had almost determined to go
away, but on hinting at the possibility of his having to do so, Julia
had given him a look which made him immediately