Carthew whispered some further hasty instructions to Herries, and, "Yes, my lord," the old factor answered again so that all could hear, and all understood that the tenth Earl of Jura and Baron St. Just had thus succeeded the ninth—who lay there dead on the floor before them.

The duchess was gently leading Sallie away. Herries followed them, on his own errands, while Captain Dove and his accomplices remained looking on with sullen, suspicious eyes, straining their ears in a vain attempt to hear what was to be their fate.

Carthew turned to them. "I\'ll bid you good night now," he said, in a tone not without a new tinge of authority in it, and at which they looked anything but well pleased. "You\'ll be more comfortable in your own quarters than anywhere else in the meantime." And, with that sufficiently broad hint, he stood waiting for them to go.

Captain Dove had opened his mouth as if to speak, but said nothing. Slyne, very pinched and white about the nostrils, drew Mr. Jobling toward the door, as if he would not trust the shifty lawyer with Carthew, and answered for them all, with a most sarcastic inflection, "Good night,—my lord!" Now that the worst had come to the worst he was his old cool, careless, calculating self again.

Captain Dove paused at the buffet in passing, and went on with both hands full. Both he and Slyne, on their way toward the North Keep with Mr. Jobling shambling along between them, not unlike a condemned criminal, noticed the unusual number of able-bodied men-servants who seemed to have found aimless occupation of some sort about the corridor, and drew their own discomforting conclusions therefrom.

Slyne even hesitated for a moment on the threshold of the cosy living-hall which occupies the base of the North Keep, and then, with a grimace of disdain, followed the other two, closing the heavy door behind him. Almost immediately he heard the key turned quietly in the lock outside—and knew that his suspicions had been only too well founded. Carthew intended to keep him and his associates prisoners there. He bit his lip and pulled at his moustache as he watched Captain Dove drawing the cork of one of the two bottles of champagne that strategist had brought from the banquet-hall.

"We\'re cornered at last," he said suddenly, as the old man set the bottle down after having imbibed the best half of its contents. "They\'ve locked us in here."

Captain Dove turned to glare disbelievingly at him, and then, darting across to the door, tugged furiously at its wrought-iron handle. He set a foot against the wall and tried again, with no better results. He bounced about, almost frantic, blaspheming as if bereft of all self-control. Mr. Jobling stood wringing his hands helplessly, his flaccid features expressive of abject despair. But Slyne continued to eye the old man with a strained, disconcerting composure.

"We haven\'t so much time to spare, Dove," said he bitingly, "that we can afford to waste any more watching you play the fool. I expect that fellow Carthew will have your whole history out of Farish M\'Kissock within—"

"If you had only kept your damned mouth shut when Brasse was kicking the bucket," cried Captain Dove, very venomously, "Carthew would be keeping him company now. The snake would have got him too. And we\'d have won out after all."

Slyne ground his teeth. But that was no moment for futile recrimination, and self-interest served to stay the acrid retort on the tip of his tongue.

"\'If this and if that\' doesn\'t make any difference now," he declared evenly. "I\'m not going to argue with you. I want to get out of this before worse comes my way."

"But how—" moaned Mr. Jobling, across whose mental vision also were no doubt flashing pictures of Wandsworth Common and Wormwood Scrubbs.

Slyne silenced him with a glance. "I\'d very gladly leave you here to your fate, you fat bungler!" said he, with irrepressible bitterness, "if it weren\'t that you\'d turn informer on us. So come on, both of you. We\'ve only one chance left among us. And, but for me, neither of you would have even that." Wherewith, and only pausing to take a long pull at Captain Dove\'s open bottle, he turned up the staircase, leaving them to follow him or stay where they were, as they chose.

Captain Dove did follow him, curiously, but not forgetting to pocket the other bottle. The shivering lawyer came close at his heels, no less eager to snatch at any possibility of escape.

"Get into a change of clothes," ordered Slyne, as he opened the door of his own room. "And I wouldn\'t be slow about it, if I were you—for I\'m going as soon as I\'m ready."

Captain Dove\'s change did not unduly detain him, since he merely pulled on a pair of serge trousers and a pilot-jacket on top of his other attire. And Mr. Jobling was back in Slyne\'s room no less promptly. They found it in darkness and Captain Dove uttered a stifled imprecation. But almost immediately, they heard hasty footsteps on the stair without and Slyne reappeared with a coil of thin strong cord in one hand.

"The flagpole-halliards," he explained breathlessly as he shut the door behind him again. "My window looks out on the battlements. We must clamber down. Make the rope secure at this end, Dove, but so that we can pull it after us once we\'re all down—it\'s long enough to go double—while I get some things together."

Captain Dove did as he was bidden, so deftly that Slyne had not quite completed his own preparations when the old man called on him to go first.

"Send Jobling down," said Slyne, pulling on an overcoat to cover his evening clothes, and the stout solicitor gave voice to a very heartrending groan as he glared blankly out into the black gulf beyond the window.

"I won\'t go—" he was beginning when Captain Dove ran furiously at him, clutched him round the waist in a gorilla-like grip, and thrust him, feet foremost, struggling insanely, over the sill.

"Catch hold of the cord—both strands—or I\'ll drop you!" snarled the old man. "Down you go, now. You\'ll find a knot every foot or so. You needn\'t slip unless you force me to start you with a slam on the head." And he stood watching, grimly amused, while his moaning victim sank out of sight, very gradually.

In a few moments the weight on the rope relaxed.

"Are y............