A man standing on one of the lowermost stairs with a lantern lighted Burgo and Mr. Marchment on their way down.

Burgo now found himself on the ground-floor of the tower. He had been unconscious when brought there, and he looked about him with some measure of curiosity. There were a couple of doors facing each other, the larger and more substantial of which he rightly conjectured to be the one which gave admittance to the tower from the outside, and that the other led down to the underground passage. What, however, struck him most was a hole in the wall, where the masonry, which lay in a confused heap on the floor, had been knocked away, leaving a gaping chasm large enough for a man to pass through. But he had only just time to note these things before the sailor with the lantern led the way through the gap in the wall. As Marchment beckoned Burgo to follow him, he said laughingly: "You can see for yourself that I and my fellows were put to some little trouble before we could get at you. But you were such a puzzle to us--some of my men would have it the tower was haunted, and you the ghost--that we couldn\'t rest till we had found out all about you."

Burgo had vaguely expected that on stepping through the gap he should find himself in the open air, instead of which he was in a tiny chamber, just big enough to hold three men, built in the thickness of the wall, with a narrow flight of steps at his feet, apparently leading down into the foundations of the tower. But there was no time to wonder: down the steps they went in single file, slowly and carefully, coming before long to a larger chamber, measuring about twenty feet by twelve, hollowed out of the body of the cliff on which the tower was built. Burgo could now plainly hear the plash and beat of the tide, which sounded close at hand.

As before, however, there was only just time to glance around, for the man with the lantern was still leading the way. There was still another flight of steps to descend, much broader and of rougher construction than the first, with a massive grille, or open-work iron door, at the bottom of them, now wide open, and beyond that a cavern of some spaciousness open to the sea, with, a little lower than the grille, a sort of rude causeway formed of big, slippery sea-worn slabs, which reached nearly to the mouth of the cave, and was evidently washed over by every tide. Not far from the end of this landing-place, the tide being now on the turn, a boat was waiting with a couple of men in her. The one with the lantern held out his hand to Burgo to help him over the slippery footway, Marchment followed, and a couple of minutes later the boat was pushed off, and the oars unshipped. As they swept out of the cavern on the summit of a reflex wave, the light of the lantern was extinguished. The oars were muffled, and the men pulled almost without a sound. The night was dark and moonless, canopied with heavy clouds which would probably shed themselves in rain before many hours were over. Not a word above a whisper was spoken till they pulled up under the lee of the Naiad, which showed like some huge black monster of the deep, with not a single gleam of light anywhere visible.

"All well?" demanded a voice softly from out the darkness.

"All well!" responded a voice from the boat.

"Await my return," whispered Marchment to Burgo.

Then everybody left the boat save Burgo and one of the men. But barely five minutes had passed before Marchment was back, and one by one four men followed him. They began at once to give way, and, as nothing was said to them, they had doubtless had their orders beforehand. Marchment seated himself in the stern and took the tiller; but first he passed a revolver to Burgo, whispering as he did so: "One never knows what may happen, and it is just as well to be prepared for eventualities."

Burgo took no heed in which direction they were steering, his mind was full of other things; and, indeed, just then he had much to think of. In all probability the next hour would prove one of the most eventful of his life. He was roused from his reverie by the grating of the boat\'s keel on the sandy beach.

"Here we are," said Marchment in a low voice.

"Where is here?" queried Burgo.

"We are opposite a gully, or break in the cliff, about half a mile to the west of Garion Keep. This we shall ascend, and then make our way back along the summit of the cliff till we reach the Keep, after which we shall put ourselves in your hands and obey implicitly whatever instructions you may choose to give us."

About twenty minutes later the little party were gathered under the garden wall of the Keep, which on that side was about six feet high. As they were coming along Burgo imparted his plan to Marchment, so that there was now no loss of time. One of the sailors, a sturdy, broad-set fellow, proceeded to make what schoolboys call a "back" against the wall, as if for a game of leap-frog, thus serving as a sort of stepping-stone for the others to the top of the wall, whence one after another they dropped to the ground on the other side. They were now in the shrubbery which fringed the lawn on the cliff side of the Keep. Sperani\'s dogs, as it may be remembered, were turned loose at night in the courtyard which shut in the Keep on the landward side. Two facts had been borne in mind by Burgo--one, that his uncle had caused a bow window with centre glass doors to be built out on the cliff side, and the other that he, Sir Everard, slept on the ground floor. It was in the direction of the bow window, the position of which he could pretty well guess at, that Burgo now led the little party in silence across the lawn. It seemed to him that there would be found the most vulnerable point for gaining admittance to the Keep.

His surmise proved to be correct. When the bow window was found it did not take one of the men--the same who had forced the door of Burgo\'s prison, and who had been apprenticed to a locksmith before he ran away to sea--very many minutes to effect an entrance. The party now found themselves in a room which had been appropriated by Lady Clinton for her own especial use, from which they made their way into the main corridor of the house. A couple of dark lanterns had already been produced, and their light flashed around. So far everything had succeeded almost beyond Burgo\'s expectations. Turning to him, Marchment now said: "What is our next proceeding, mon ami?" and Burgo was about to answer: "To find my uncle\'s bedroom," when he was spared the necessity of replying by the unexpected appearance of Vallance, who issued from a room half-way down the corridor. He had been lying, half-dressed and half-asleep, on the couch in Sir Everard\'s dressing-room, ready to attend on his master at a moment\'s notice, when he had been disturbed by a noise for which he could not account, and had ventured into the corridor in his desire to ascertain the origin of it.

"Seize that man," cried Burgo, the moment his eyes fell on him; and before the valet could gather his scattered wits he had not merely been seized, but bound hand and foot by two of the seamen, one of whom said gruffly to him: "Look here, my hearty, if you don\'t want a bullet in your gizzard, you\'ll keep a still tongue in your head." Then by Burgo\'s orders he was thrust into an empty room, and the key turned on him.

Another of the men meanwhile, by Marchment\'s directions, had lighted the Argand lamp which hung from the ceiling at one end of the corridor.

Burgo had at once concluded that Vallance was in attendance on his uncle, and he lost not a moment in passing through the door which the valet had left open, and so from the dressing-room into the bedroom beyond, in both of which a light was burning. There he found his uncle, who was sitting up in bed, and who had already with his enfeebled voice called twice for Vallance without avail.

His mind was clear, his memory unclouded, and he recognised Burgo on the instant. A low cry broke from his lips. "Oh, my boy, my boy!" he exclaimed, "why did you leave me? Where have you been all this weary time? They told me--but it matters nothing what they told me. It was all lies--lies! They thought to deceive me, but they were mistaken. But you have come back to me at last, and you won\'t leave me again, will you, my boy?" His voice quavered and broke as the last words left his lips.

"Never, so help me Heaven!" exclaimed Burgo fervently as he bent and touched his uncle\'s forehead with his lips. "But we will talk about the past another time. I have come to take you away from here--and to take you away from her. I have good friends outside to help me. But there is no time to lose. Come--let me help you to dress."

There was a decanter on the table containing brandy. He mixed a portion of it with some water, and at his request Sir Everard drank it off.

The baronet comprehended that a crisis had come, and he wasted no time in asking questions. He let Burgo help him to dress; indeed, he was quite as eager to be gone as his nephew was to get him away.

It was evident that he was very weak, but excitement had lent him a fictitious strength, which, however, would presently evaporate for lack of stamina to back it up. His face, too, had grown greyer and more haggard in the interval since Burgo had seen him last, and his hair was now as colourless as driven snow.

As Burgo was helping his uncle to put on his fur-lined overcoat, he said; "Do you think, sir, that Miss Roylance would leave here in your charge? It would be a thousand pities--would it not?--to leave her behind."

"It would indeed. She is a good girl, a noble girl, and--and I\'m afraid she is not very happy here. She ought to go with us by all means." It never struck him to ask how it happened that his nephew was acquainted with Dacia Roylance.

After placing his uncle in an easy-chair, and administering a little more brandy-and-water, he left the room in order to speak to Marchment. Although not more than a quarter of an hour had elapsed since they set foot inside the Keep, he knew that the latter would be growing impatient. And yet to go and to be compelled to leave Dacia behind, and that without the chance of a parting word between them, was a prospect which wrung his heart with anguish of a kind such as heretofore he had not known. If only he could have seized upon Mother Sprowle, or one of the female domestics, and have sent a message to Dacia that he wanted to see her without loss of time But there was no one to send. Except Vallance and his uncle, no one in the house appeared to have been disturbed, for the servants slept in another wing. What to do he knew not.

Marchment and his men were gathered in the entrance-hall out of which the corridor led. The captain of the Naiad had seated himself on one of the lower stairs, and was smoking a cigarette with an air of the utmost sang-froid.

"I hope I have not altogether exhausted your patience," said Burgo as he came up. "My uncle is now ready, and----"

He stopped like one suddenly st............