ye, six!--means safety to me, Moneylaws. Will
you keep silence?"

"Where's Miss Dunlop?" asked I.

"You can be with her in three minutes," he answered, "if you'll give me
your word--and you're a truthful lad, I think--that you'll both bide
where you are till morning, and that after that you'll keep your tongue
quiet. Will you do that?"

"She's close by?" I demanded.

"Over our heads," he said calmly. "And you've only to say the word--"

"It's said, Mr. Hollins!" I exclaimed. "Go your ways! I'll never breathe
a syllable of it to a soul! Neither in six, nor twelve, nor a thousand
hours!--your secret's safe enough with me--so long as you keep your word
about her--and just now!"

He drew his free hand off the table, still watching me, and still keeping
up the revolver, and from a drawer in the table between us pulled out a
key and pushed it over.

"There's a door behind you in yon corner," he said. "And you'll find a
lantern at its foot--you've matches on you, no doubt. And beyond the door
there's another stair that leads up to the turret, and you'll find her
there--and safe--and so--go your ways, now, Moneylaws, and I'll go mine!"

He dropped the revolver into a side pocket of his waterproof coat as he
spoke, and, pointing me to the door in the corner, turned to that by
which he had entered. And as he turned he snapped off the light of his
electric lamp, while I myself, having fumbled for a box of matches,
struck one and looked around me for this lantern he had mentioned. In
its spluttering light I saw his big figure round the corner--then, just
as I made for the lantern, the match went out and all was darkness again.
As I felt for another match, I heard him pounding the stair--and suddenly
there was a sort of scuffle and he cried out loudly once, and there was
the sound of a fall, and then of lighter steps hurrying away, and then a
heavy, rattling groan. And with my heart in my mouth and fingers
trembling so that I could scarcely hold the match, I made shift to light
the candle in the lantern, and went fearfully after him. There, in an
angle of the stairway, he was lying, with the blood running in dark
streams from a gap in his throat; while his hands, which he had
instinctively put up to it, were feebly dropping away and relaxing on his
broad chest. And as I put the lantern closer to him he looked up at me in
a queer, puzzled fashion, and died before my very eyes.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE SWAG

I shrank b