baron, reining up his pony. "Hans and Jorgan,
is your captive safe? Good. Bring him forth." He turned to his
invisible band. "To your quarters, varlets! I would confer alone with
the usurious"--he rolled the satisfying word finely off his
tongue--"rogue."

Hand on hip he sat, and watched his merry figments dismount and lead
away their horses.

He turned, and frowned splendidly on the prisoner. "What think ye of
our hospitality, Lambert of London?" he said.

Mr. Lambert scowled; his emotion was too deep for words.

Suddenly Tinker dropped the robber baron, and became his frank and
engaging self: "I'm sorry to be so late," he said with a charming air
of apology, "but I had to send a message to Tullispaith to say that you
would not be back till Saturday, or perhaps Monday."

"What!" screamed Mr. Lambert. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't want them to hunt for you. I'm going to keep you here
till you do what I want," said Tinker with a seraphic smile.

"You young rascal! You mean to try and keep me here!" screamed Mr.
Lambert, jumping about in a light, but ungainly fashion. "Oh, I'll
teach you! I'll make you repent this till your dying day! You think
you can keep me here! You shall see. The first shepherd, the first
keeper who passes will let me out. And I won't rest"--and he swore an
oath quite unfit for boyish ears--"till I've hunted you down!"

"No one will come within a mile of the Deil's Den," said the unruffled
Tinker. "It's haunted by a headless woman and a redheaded man with his
throat cut. But perhaps you've seen them. Besides, I've told them
that there's a man in brown who shouts and waves, and then disappears
when anyone comes to the tower. Why, if they see you, they'll run for
their lives." He spoke with a convicting quietness.

Mr. Lambert doubled up over the parapet in a gasping anguish.

"You're not going to leave here till you give me a letter for your
clerk, telling him to hand over Sir Tancred Beauleigh's promissory
note," said Tinker.

Mr. Lambert rejected the suggestion in extravagant language.

"You bandy words with me!" cried the Baron Hildebrand Anne of
Ardrochan. "Lambert of London, beware! Think, rash rogue, on your
grinders! Hans and Jorgan, prepare the red-hot pincers! You have a
quarter of an hour to reflect, Lambert."

He flung himself off his pony, tethered it, strode down to the spring
which trickled out of the hillside some forty yards away, and came