n his blood. In the kitchen I found the bottle of wine
(Rattray's best port, that they were trying to make her take for her
health) with which Eva had bribed him, and I gave it to him before
laying hands on a couple of chairs.

"What are you going to do?"'

"Go out the way we came."

"But the wall?"

"Pile up these chairs, and as many more as we may need, if we can't open
the gate."

But Eva was not paying attention any longer, either to me or to Jose;
his white teeth were showing in a grin for all his pain; her eyes were
fixed in horror on the floor.

"They've come back," she gasped. "The underground passage! Hark--hark!"

There was a muffled rush of feet beneath our own, then a dull but very
distinguishable clatter on some invisible stair.

"Underground passage!" I exclaimed, and in my sheer disgust I forgot
what was due to my darling. "Why on earth didn't you tell me of it
before?"

"There was so much to tell you! It leads to the sea. Oh, what shall we
do? You must hide--upstairs--anywhere!" cried Eva, wildly. "Leave them
to me--leave them to me."

"I like that," said I; and I did; but I detested myself for the tears my
words had drawn, and I prepared to die for them.

"They'll kill you, Mr. Cole!"

"It would serve me right; but we'll see about it."

And I stood with my revolver very ready in my right hand, while with
the other I caught poor Eva to my side, even as a door flew open,
and Rattray himself burst upon us, a lantern in his hand, and the
perspiration shining on his handsome face in its light.

I can see him now as he stood dumfounded on the threshold of the hall;
and yet, at the time, my eyes sped past him into the room beyond.

It was the one I have described as being lined with books; there was
a long rent in this lining, where the books had opened with a door,
through which Captain Harris, Joaquin Santos, and Jane Braithwaite
followed Rattray in quick succession, the men all with lanterns, the
woman scarlet and dishevelled even for her. It was over the squire's
shoulders I saw their faces; he kept them from passing him in the
doorway by a free use of his elbows; and when I looked at him again, his
black eyes were blazing from a face white with passion, and they were
fixed upon me.

"What the devil brings you here?" he thundered at last.

"Don't ask idle questions," was my reply to that.

"So you were shamming to-day!"

"I was taking a leaf out of your book."

"You'll gain nothi