blows of a
hammer, and the screaming of the woman was hushed. And before he had
come to an end with the ordering, that Dutch Fury, set free by Heberto,
springs into the room of the telephone, with blood in her eyes, and
half-naked. When she knew what he was about, she asked him in her sharp
voice:

"'Have you told him first to find the man's car?'

"'What car? What man?' says Melchardo.

"'The devil that laid me out, and you fools too,' quoth Fridji. 'The man
that knew who stole the girl; the man that knew where you'd taken her;
the man who had her out of this house three hours after we fetched her
in. He came--he _must_ have come in a car, and by the London Road. And
he must have left the car near by,' she cried, cursing Melchardo. 'Give
me a little writing on a paper, with a signature which none can
decipher, saying that the gentleman sends for his car which he left in
keeping, when the master of "The Coach and Horses" put him on the way to
"The Myrtles." And give me money, so that I pay him more than was
promised. If that devil get to his car, he will hang us all. But I will
myself drive it half-way hither,' said la Holandesa, 'and send it over
the road's edge by the way.'"

And after these things, said Pepe, she went to clothe herself, Melchardo
sat him down to write, and Heberto, the London man, was set to cleaning
and preparing for the road that automobile in which they had fetched la
senorita roja from the south; and him, Pepe, they despatched scouting
after Ocklee the Bull, to learn what might have been his luck in dealing
with El Cojeante and the girl.

"And behind my teeth," he concluded, "I smiled, knowing well that I went
to learn how thou hadst dealt with Ocklee."

"And how, Lagarto marrullero, shall we now deal with ourselves?" asked
Dick. "Tell me that."

"Melchardo waits awhile for me and my news," murmured the Lizard
thoughtfully, shifting his geographical bread-crumbs. "If I be too long
away, he will move without my words to misguide him."

Then he set forth how, since Bayliss had taken his orders, there had
elapsed full time for each one of the pickets to reach its post, though
perhaps not yet for regular contact to have been established by the
patrols betwixt point and point. But the Senorita must be waked at once
and take the road with Dicco, moving towards the best, or weakest, bars
of the cage; for, though the net was spread, the great spider himself
was not yet amove down its spokes an