t vanished, and its
interior piled high with mildewed bedding, mouldy old carpet, broken
furniture, and refuse of every sort.

A foot or two above the roof-level of this glowed--two luminous
rectangles in the blackness of darkness--the windows of the back room on
the second storey; and out of these came floating still the song, the
laughter, and the jabbered French he had heard in the house next door.
It did not take him long to make up his mind. Gripping the swaying
supports of the sagging shed, he went up it with the agility of a
monkey, crawled to the nearer of the two windows, and, cautiously
raising himself, peeped in. What he saw made him suck in his breath
sharply and sent his heart hammering hard and fast.

A dozen men were in the room, men whose faces, despite an inartistic
attempt to appear Oriental, he recognized at a glance and knew better
than he knew his own. About them lay discarded portions of Cingalese
attire, thrown off because of the heat, and waiting to be resumed at any
moment. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and rank with spirituous
odours. Sprawled figures were everywhere, and on a sort of couch against
the opposite wall, a cigarette between her fingers, a glass of absinthe
at her elbow, her laughter and badinage ringing out as loudly as any,
lay the lissom figure of Margot!

But even as Cleek looked in upon it the picture changed. Swift, sharp,
and sudden came the rattle of flying feet on the outer stairs. Margot
flung aside her cigarette and jumped up, the song and the laughter came
to an abrupt end, the door flew open, and with a shout and a cheer a man
bounced into the room.

"Serpice! Ah, _le bon Dieu!_ it is Serpice at last!" cried out Margot in
joyous excitement as she and the others crowded round him. "Soul of a
sluggard, don't waste time in laughing and capering like this! Speak up,
speak up, you hear? Are we to fly at once to the mill and join him? Has
he succeeded? Is it done?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" shouted back Serpice, throwing up his cap and capering.
"It is done! It is done! Under the very nose of the Cracksman, too!
Merode's got them both! The little lordship and the Mademoiselle Lorne,
too! They took the bait like gudgeons; they stepped into the automobile
without a fear, and--whizz! it was off to the mill like that! La, la,
la! We win, we win, we win!"

The shock of the thing was too much for Cleek. Carried out of himself by
the knowledge that the woman he loved was now i