of one
of these, the back of the chair in which the Maire sat was lashed
to the handle of a heavy bureau. Then his feet were fastened to the
two legs of the chair, so that he could neither kick nor upset
himself. The other man was then fastened as securely. This done
they blew out the candles, left the room, locked the door behind
them--taking the key--and then sallied out into the street.

"That was a good shot of yours with the inkstand," Terence said.

"I had my eye on it, all the time he was speaking," Ryan replied.
"I saw that, if I were to move to get round the table at him, the
little man would have time to shout; but that if I could hit him in
the wind, it would be all right."

"Well, there must be no more stopping, now. I don't know whether
there is a Mrs. Maire; if not, there will certainly be no alarm
until morning. If there is, it depends upon what sort of woman she
is as to how long a start we shall get. If she is a sleepy woman
she is probably dreaming by this time, and may not discover until
morning that her lord and master is not by her side. If she is a
bad-tempered woman, she will probably lie for an hour or two,
thinking over what she shall say to him when he comes in. If she is
a nervous woman, she will get up and go downstairs.

"I left the lamp burning in the hall on purpose. Seeing it there,
she will naturally think that he has not come in, and will go
upstairs again for an hour or two; then she will probably call up
the servants, and may send them out to look for him; finally, she
may go to the police office and wake up a constable. It is not
probable there are any of them on night duty, in a quiet place like
this. Altogether, I calculate that it will be at least four hours
before they think of breaking open the door of the office, to see
if he is there; so at the worst we have got four hours' start; at
the best, ten hours.

"It is only half-past nine now. We shall be at the mouth of the
Sienne in three hours, or less. It does not look above nine or ten
miles on the map and, directly we get fairly out of the town, we
will go as quickly as we can, for every minute is of importance.

"If we can get hold of a boat at once, we ought to be at Jersey
soon after daybreak; although I am not very sure of that, for I
believe there are all sorts of strong currents along this coast. I
remember one of the officers saying so, as we came down the Channel
on the voyage out. Of course, it will make a dif