"

"Strange!--I wonder when it got there? It is from the chief," he added,
glancing at the paper.

Both stooped to try and decipher this last tiny scrap of paper on which
a few words had been hastily scrawled, when suddenly a slight noise
attracted their attention, which seemed to come from the passage beyond.

"What's that?" said both instinctively. Lord Antony crossed the room
towards the door, which he threw open quickly and suddenly; at that very
moment he received a stunning blow between the eyes, which threw him
back violently into the room. Simultaneously the crouching, snake-like
figure in the gloom had jumped up and hurled itself from behind upon the
unsuspecting Sir Andrew, felling him to the ground.

All this occurred within the short space of two or three seconds, and
before either Lord Antony or Sir Andrew had time or chance to utter a
cry or to make the faintest struggle. They were each seized by two
men, a muffler was quickly tied round the mouth of each, and they
were pinioned to one another back to back, their arms, hands, and legs
securely fastened.

One man had in the meanwhile quietly shut the door; he wore a mask and
now stood motionless while the others completed their work.

"All safe, citoyen!" said one of the men, as he took a final survey of
the bonds which secured the two young men.

"Good!" replied the man at the door; "now search their pockets and give
me all the papers you find."

This was promptly and quietly done. The masked man having taken
possession of all the papers, listened for a moment or two if there were
any sound within "The Fisherman's Rest." Evidently satisfied that this
dastardly outrage had remained unheard, he once more opened the door and
pointed peremptorily down the passage. The four men lifted Sir Andrew
and Lord Antony from the ground, and as quietly, as noiselessly as they
had come, they bore the two pinioned young gallants out of the inn and
along the Dover Road into the gloom beyond.

In the coffee-room the masked leader of this daring attempt was quickly
glancing through the stolen papers.

"Not a bad day's work on the whole," he muttered, as he quietly took off
his mask, and his pale, fox-like eyes glittered in the red glow of the
fire. "Not a bad day's work."

He opened one or two letters from Sir Andrew Ffoulkes' pocket-book,
noted the tiny scrap of paper which the two young men had only just had
time to read; but one letter specially, signed Armand