When Judge Danvers returned to the city he at once set himself to the completion of his plans for the liberation of Major Montague.

This was all the easier, because the very man who had caused that gentleman’s arrest had done so without any intention of actually bringing him to any “trial and conviction.”

Such a net as they had cast around the Major was readily untangled by the skilful fingers of the great lawyer, even while he transferred the whole of it to his own control.

As to the moderate sum of money it cost him, he never once thought of that.

The immediate consequences were twofold.

The first, that Major Montague found himself that Saturday morning, sitting in front of the Judge’s table in the inner room of his suite of “offices,” to all appearances, at least, a free man again.

[Pg 314]The second, that the moment the doors of the prison closed behind him and he found his movements once more untrammeled, Major Montague began to feel a strong return of his habitual “bumptiousness,” not to say insolence, of disposition.

“I’m out now,” he said to himself, “and old Danvers’ll never dream of sending me back again. Besides, I don’t half believe he can. Anyhow, I mean to make some kind of terms for myself before I tell him all I know. It’s the best card I’ve got and he must pay for it before he plays it.”

Another idea, and one against the evil of which Judge Danvers ought to have carefully guarded him, had been that he would go and poison himself with “just about five fingers of old rye,” before he went to the lawyer’s office.

Not that such a man could find anything like intoxication in a single drink of whiskey, however liberal, but that it supplied him with the very kind of wooden-headed obstinacy which he thought he needed, and which fools of his kind—all fools who drink whiskey—mistake for courage.

[Pg 315]“I can face him down now,” he muttered, as he reached the door, “only I wish I’d put in just one more real good snifter.”

Another, most likely, would have been followed by “just one more,” for his prison fare had left him very “dry.”

There he was now, however, with the hard penetrating eyes of Judge Danvers looking him through and through as he asked him:

“Did you ever see that black valise before?”

“It’s the one Jack Chills stole from me the day he ran away,” said the Major, with a toss of his head.

“No nonsense, please,” calmly responded the lawyer. “Now, you’ve promised to tell me the history of it and what is in it. Perhaps the shortest way will be to open it at once.”

“That’s my property, Judge,” said the Major, in a voice which was getting louder and firmer. “It’s mine, and I’ll open it when and where I please. I’ll thank you to hand it right over to me.”

“Hand it over to you?” exclaimed the lawyer.

“Yes, or pay me my own price for it. I want ten thousand down, and good security——”

[Pg 316]“Pay you—you miserable jail-bird!” almost fiercely interrupted the angry lawyer. “I’ll pay you——”

Under other circumstances, the manifest indignation of so dangerous a man as Judge Danvers would probably have cowed the Major at once, but the alcoholic poison he had absorbed had done its usual work. He was—or seemed to be—perfectly sober, but the idea uppermost in his mind at the moment, was that he could assert his ownership of that valise, and that he had the physical strength to “clean out” not only the lawyer, but his whole office full of clerks.

He sprang to his feet, therefore, and was reaching out his long, powerful arm towards the black leather prize, when the door of the office swung open, just as Judge Danvers struck sharply upon his sonorous little table-bell.

“Mr. Norton!” exclaimed the Judge, whose usually placid face was fairly purple with indignation.

“Norton!” echoed Major Montague, as he drew back his hand and turned to face the newcomer.

“Davis!” shouted the Judge to the clerk who[Pg 317] now put his head inside the door, “call an officer and ask him to wait outside.”

“One here now, sir,” responded the clerk.

“All right,” said the Judge. “Sit down, Montague. Mr. Norton, I am glad to see you, but I’m very much occupied at this moment. Please excuse me till I’m done with this person.”

“Ah! yes, of course; I beg your pardon, really,” returned the Englishman. “But, Judge Danvers, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to take a look at your friend there. Did I hear you call him Montague?”

There was a strong expression of disgust on the lawyer’s face when Norton began, but it was now rapidly changing to one of intense curiosity if not of expectation.

That of Major Montague, however, had undergone an even more complete and rapid transformation.

He had even made a motion towards the door, without so much as grasping for the valise, but the assured presence of the “officer” in the outer room came crushingly upon him, and he sank back on his chair in a state of mind that was[Pg 318] plainly too much for even the strength of the “old rye.”

Mr. Ashbel Norton walked slowly and steadily forward, looking straight in the face of the Major, and it instantly occurred to Judge Danvers that there was a decided resemblance to be traced between them, although the Englishman was somewhat the more slender and younger looking of the two.

The only remark the Judge made was, however, “Major Montague—Mr. Ashbel Norton,” as if he were formally introducing two gentlemen.

“Montague!” again repeated the latter. “Now, that’s very good indeed! Bob, you old sinner, have I found you at last? What have you done with Lydia’s child? Where are the papers? Montague, indeed! Judge Danvers, I’m more sorry and ashamed than I can tell you; but I am compelled to make you acquainted with my elder brother, Mr. Robert Norton, formerly a gentleman and a Major in the British army. What he is now you may perhaps know as well as I do.”

The most cowardly of all wild beasts, from a[Pg 319] wolf down to a rat, will show fight when he is cornered, and the “Major” was, probably, never a physical poltroon.

Well was it, therefore, that Ashbel Norton had been an “Eton boy” and was a master of the art of self-defence. Well too, probably, that his graceless brother had no better weapon than his huge fist at his command.

Ashbel warded off very skilfully the half-dozen furious blows which were rained upon him, but without once “striking back,” and by that time there was a heavier hand than that of Judge Danvers could have been, upon the shoulder of the Major, and the “thud” of an officer’s “locust” was beginning to sound on his head and arms.

It was a hopeless sort of business, and the sudden gust of uncontrollable rage died away into a fit of utter dejection.

“Yes, Ash,” he e............