described.

The priest had been turning over many projects in his brain, but at
last one suggested itself which had originated in connection with the
very nature of his errand.

One part of that errand was that a man should be conveyed out of the
house and carried away and left in a certain place. Now the man who
was thus to be carried out was a dead man, and the certain place to
which he was to be borne and where he was to be left was the grave;
but these stern facts did not at all deter the Irish priest from
trying to make use of this task that lay before him for the benefit of
Hawbury.

Here was a problem. A prisoner anxious for escape, and a dead man
awaiting burial; how were these two things to be exchanged so that the
living man might pass out without going to the grave?

The Irish priest puzzled and pondered and grew black in the face with
his efforts to get to the solution of this problem, and at length
succeeded--to his own satisfaction, at any rate. What is more, when he
explained his plan to Ethel, she adopted it. She started, it is true;
she shuddered, she recoiled from it at first, but finally she adopted
it. Furthermore, she took it upon herself to persuade Hawbury to fall
in with it.

So much with regard to Hawbury. For Minnie and her sister the
indefatigable priest had already concocted a plan before leaving home.
This was the very commonplace plan of a disguise. It was to be an old
woman's apparel, and he trusted to the chapter of accidents to make
the plan a success. He noticed with pleasure that some women were at
the place, and thought that the prisoners might be confounded with
them.

When at length Ethel had explained the plan to Hawbury he made a few
further objections, but finally declared himself ready to carry it
out.

The priest now began to put his project into execution. He had brought
a screw-driver with him, and with this he took out the screws from the
coffin one by one, as quietly as possible.

Then the lid was lifted off, and Hawbury arose and helped the priest
to transfer the corpse from the coffin to the straw. They then put the
corpse on its side, with the face to the wall, and bound the hands
behind it, and the feet also. The priest then took Hawbury's
handkerchief and bound it around the head of the corpse. One or two
rugs that lay near were thrown over the figure, so that it at length
looked like a sleeping man.

Hawbury now got into the coffin and lay down on his bac