general.

"O burn me, and must we wait here, shivering in the darkness with a
curse on't and me wet to the bone----"

"Content ye, my lushy cove, the others aren't far."

"The others, curse 'em! And what o' me shivering to the bones o' me as
I'm a roaring lad----"

"What, Jerry," cried another voice, "is the Captain wi' you?"

"Aye, here I am--show a light!"

"Why so I will an ye gimme time. So we're all met, then--all here,
Nick?" Followed the sound of flint on steel, a flash, a glow, a light
dazzling in its suddenness, a light that revealed four masked men,
mud-splashed and bedraggled, thronged about a lanthorn on the uneven
floor.

"Now mark me all," said Joseph pushing up his vizard. "You, Jerry and
the Captain will ride to the cross-roads, the finger-post a-top o' the
hill. The coach should reach thereabouts in half an hour or so. Benno
and I strike across the fields and join my gentleman's coach and come
down upon you by the cross-roads. So soon as you've stopped the coach,
do you hold 'em there till we come, then it's up wi' the lady and into
my gentleman's coach wi' her. D'ye take me?"

"No we don't!" growled Jerry, shaking the rain from his hat, "how a
plague are we t' know which is the right coach----"

"By stopping all as come your way----"

"Ged so--we will that!" nodded the Captain.

"And look'ee Jerry and be damned, if you----"

"Stand!" The four sprang apart and stood staring at the Major who
stood, a pistol in each hand, blocking the doorway between them and the
howling desolation outside. "Move so much as a finger either one of
you and he's a dead man. Quick, Sergeant---their wrists--behind!"
Thus while the Major stood covering the four with levelled weapons
watchful and ready, Sergeant Zebedee stepped forward with several
lengths of stout cord across his arm. Coming up to the Captain who
chanced to be nearest, the Sergeant was in the act of securing him,
when Jerry uttered a dreadful cry:

"God save us--look!" For an instant the Major's glance wavered and in
that moment Joseph had kicked out the light and there and then befell a
fierce struggle in the dark, a desperate smiting and grappling; no
chance here for pistol-play, since friend and foe were inextricably
mixed, a close-locked, reeling fray. So while the storm raged without,
the fight raged within, above the howling of wind and lash of rain rose
piercing cries, shouts, groans and hoarse-panted oaths. Smitten by a