on it.

At last, however, Corporal and his friend were as securely tied up as
they themselves could have done it, and dragged into the shed. It was
pitch dark, and they neither of them at first perceived a third occupant
of the tenement in the person of their fellow-conspirator, who was
lying, bound like themselves, on the floor, where for an hour at least
he had been enjoying the sweets of solitary meditation.

"Now, Julius," said Jeffreys, when his three guests were duly deposited,
"you'll have to watch them here till I come back. Hold your tongues,
all of you, or Julius will trouble you. Watch them, good dog, and stay
here."

"Now," said he to the boy, when they found themselves outside, "what's
your name?"

"Percy Rimbolt."

"Where do you live?"

"Wildtree Towers, five miles away."

"We can be there in an hour. We may as well use this cart, which was
meant to drive you in another direction. Can you walk to it, or shall I
carry you?"

Percy, as one in a dream, walked the short distance leaning on his
rescuer's arm. Then, deposited on the soft hay, too weary to trouble
himself how he got there, or who this new guardian might be, he dropped
off into an exhausted sleep, from which he was only aroused by the sound
of his parents' voices as the cart pulled up at the door of Wildtree
Towers.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

POLICEMAN JULIUS.

Wildtree Towers had been thrown into a state of unmistakable panic when,
at the usual hour of retiring for the night, Percy had not put in an
appearance. His absence at dinner-time agitated no one but his mother;
and the search instituted at her bidding began languidly, and with the
usual assurance of a speedy discovery. But as hour passed hour and no
tidings came, things began to look serious, and even Walker pulled a
long face.

Midnight came, and still no tidings. Appleby came up to the house for a
lantern, but had nothing to report beyond the fact that the search so
far had been unsuccessful. The minutes dragged on for the unhappy
watchers. It was harder far for them to sit there in the hall,
listening to the unsympathetic tick of the clock and starting at every
sound on the gravel without, than it was for the father to tramp through
the woods and trace the footsteps along the river's bank.

At last the clock struck two, and scarcely had the chimes ceased, when
Walker put up his finger, and exclaimed,--

"Hist!"

A moment of terrible silence ensued. Then o