leave nothing to chance; they have actually brought along with them the
lashings wherewith to bind me!"

Nicholls chuckled quietly. "So they have, sir," he whispered. "It'll
be a joke to see the way that they'll be taken aback presently."

Treading carefully and using every precaution to avoid the slightest
noise, the two men slowly made their way up the beach and on to the
thick grass of the little savannah upon which the tent stood. They now
seemed to think that the necessity for such extreme caution was past,
and advanced much more rapidly, until they arrived within about twenty
yards of the tent, when they again paused for a moment to confer
together.

"Now!" whispered Leslie; and, at the word, he and his companion rose to
their feet and stepped forward into the open. The new arrivals did not
see them at once, for their heads were close together as they whispered
to each other, and there were perhaps never two more surprised men than
they were when Leslie's voice smote upon their ears with the words--

"Don't move an inch, or you are both dead men. And throw up your hands!
If you dare to move I will fire; and, as you may see, I am covering you
both!"

As Leslie spoke the two men started guiltily apart, and then stood
staring in stupefaction at the two figures that had so suddenly appeared
before them.

"Up with your hands, both of you," reiterated Leslie, sharply, for the
strangers had apparently been taken too completely by surprise to fully
comprehend all that was said to them. "And," he continued, "listen
carefully to me, both of you. You are my prisoners, and I intend to
make perfectly sure of you. I know all about you; I know you to be two
men who are engaged in a desperate enterprise, and are likely to stick
at nothing. Now, understand me well: I am just as resolute as you are,
and if you give me the slightest trouble I will put a bullet through
you, as surely as you stand there; so do not attempt any nonsense if you
value your lives. Now you," indicating one of them with his levelled
revolver, "move three paces to your right--so; halt! that will do. Now,
Nicholls, lash that fellow's hands firmly behind his back."

"Well, here's a pretty go," yelled one of them to the other in an access
of impotent fury. "A dandy old mess you've made of this job, Mister
bloomin' Peter Burton, haven't you? and dragged me into it along with
yer! I wish I'd never had nothin' at all to do with the cussed
busi