ossing
uneasily on a bed of straw, with a pitcher of water and a mouldering
crust, untasted, beside him. Robert, remembering the underground passage
and the treasure, had brought a candle and matches, but these were not
needed.

The cell was a little white-washed room about twelve feet long and
six feet wide. On one side of it was a sort of shelf sloping a little
towards the wall. On this were two rugs, striped blue and yellow, and a
water-proof pillow. Rolled in the rugs, and with his head on the pillow,
lay the burglar, fast asleep. (He had had his tea, though this the
children did not know--it had come from the coffee-shop round the
corner, in very thick crockery.) The scene was plainly revealed by the
light of a gas-lamp in the passage outside, which shone into the cell
through a pane of thick glass over the door.

'I shall gag him,' said Cyril, 'and Robert will hold him down. Anthea
and Jane and the Phoenix can whisper soft nothings to him while he
gradually awakes.'

This plan did not have the success it deserved, because the burglar,
curiously enough, was much stronger, even in his sleep, than Robert and
Cyril, and at the first touch of their hands he leapt up and shouted out
something very loud indeed.

Instantly steps were heard outside. Anthea threw her arms round the
burglar and whispered--

'It's us--the ones that gave you the cats. We've come to save you, only
don't let on we're here. Can't we hide somewhere?'

Heavy boots sounded on the flagged passage outside, and a firm voice
shouted--

'Here--you--stop that row, will you?'

'All right, governor,' replied the burglar, still with Anthea's arms
round him; 'I was only a-talking in my sleep. No offence.'

It was an awful moment. Would the boots and the voice come in. Yes! No!
The voice said--

'Well, stow it, will you?'

And the boots went heavily away, along the passage and up some sounding
stone stairs.

'Now then,' whispered Anthea.

'How the blue Moses did you get in?' asked the burglar, in a hoarse
whisper of amazement.

'On the carpet,' said Jane, truly.

'Stow that,' said the burglar. 'One on you I could 'a' swallowed, but
four--AND a yellow fowl.'

'Look here,' said Cyril, sternly, 'you wouldn't have believed any one if
they'd told you beforehand about your finding a cow and all those cats
in our nursery.'

'That I wouldn't,' said the burglar, with whispered fervour, 'so help me
Bob, I wouldn't.'

'Well, then,' Cyril went o