About a quarter of an hour before this, Mr. Paul Dangerfield was packing two trunks in his little parlour, and burning letters industriously in the fire, when his keen ear caught a sound at which a prophetic instinct within him vibrated alarm. A minute or two before he had heard a stealthy footstep outside. Then he heard the cook walk along the passage, muttering to herself, to the hall-door, where there arose a whispering. He glanced round his shoulder at the window. It was barred. Then lifting the table and its load lightly from before him, he stood erect, fronting the door, and listening intently. Two steps on tip-toe brought him to it, and he placed his fingers on the key. But he recollected a better way. There was one of those bolts that rise and fall perpendicularly in a series of rings, and bar or open the door by a touch to a rope connected with it by a wire and a crank or two.

He let the bolt softly drop into its place; the rope was within easy reach, and with his spectacles gleaming white on the door, he kept humming a desultory tune, like a man over some listless occupation.

Mr. Paul Dangerfield was listening intently, and stepped as softly as a cat. Then, with a motion almost elegant, he dropt his right hand lightly into his coat-pocket, where it lay still in ambuscade.

There came a puffing night air along the passage, and rattled the door; then a quiet shutting of the hall-door, and a shuffling and breathing near the parlour.

Dangerfield, humming his idle tune with a white and sharpening face, and a gaze that never swerved, extended his delicately-shaped fingers to the rope, and held it in his left hand. At this moment the door-handle was suddenly turned outside, and the door sustained a violent jerk.

‘Who’s there?’ demanded the harsh, prompt accents of Dangerfield, suspending his minstrelsy. ‘I’m busy.’

‘Open the door — we’ve a piece of intelligence to gi’e ye.’

‘Certainly — but don’t be tedious.’ (He drew the string, and the bolt shot up). ‘Come in, Sir.’

The door flew open; several strange faces presented themselves on the threshold, and at the same instant, a stern voice exclaimed —

‘Charles Archer, I arrest you in the king’s name.’

The last word was lost in the stunning report of a pistol, and the foremost man fell with a groan. A second pistol already gleamed in Dangerfield’s hand, and missed. With a spring like a tiger he struck the hesitating constable in the throat, laying his scalp open against the door-frame, and stamping on his face as he fell; and clutching the third by the cravat, he struck at his breast with a knife, already in his hand. But a pistol-shot from Lowe struck his right arm, scorching the cloth; the dagger and the limb dropped, and he staggered back, but recovered his equilibrium, and confronted them with a white skull-like grin, and a low ‘ha, ha, ha!’

It was all over, and the silver spectacles lay shattered on the floor, like a broken talisman, and a pair of gray, strangely-set, wild eyes glared upon them.

The suddenness of his assault, his disproportioned physical strength and terrific pluck, for a second or two, confounded his adversaries; but he was giddy — his right arm dead by his side. He sat down in a chair confronting them, his empty right hand depending near to the floor, and a thin stream of blood already trickling down his knuckles, his face smiling, and shining whitely with the damp of anguish, and the cold low ‘ha, ha, ha!’ mocking the reality of the scene.

‘Heinous old villain!’ said Lowe, advancing on him.

‘Well, gentlemen, I’ve shown fight, eh?— and now I suppose you want my watch, and money, and keys — eh?’

‘Read the warrant, Sir,’ said Lowe, sternly.

‘Warrant! hey — warrant?— why, this is something new — will you be so good as to give me a glass of water — thank you — hold the paper a moment longer — I can’t get this arm up.’ With his left hand he set down the tumbler-glass, and then held up the warrant.

‘Thank ye. Well, this warrant’s for Charles Archer.’

‘Alias Paul Dangerfield — if you read, Sir.’

‘Thank you — yes — I see — that’s news to me. Oh! Mr. Lowe — I did not see you — I haven’t hurt you, I hope? Why the plague do you come at these robbing hours? We’d have all fared better had you come by daylight.’

Lowe did not take the trouble to answer him.

‘I believe you’ve killed that constable in the exercise of his duty, Sir; the man’s dead,’ said Lowe, sternly.

‘Another gloss on my text; why invade me like housebreakers?’ said Dangerfield with a grim scoff.

‘No violence, Sirrah, on your peril — the prisoner’s wounded,’ said Lowe, catching the other fellow by the collar and thrusting him back: he had gathered himself up giddily, and swore he’d have the scoundrel’s life.

‘Well, gentlemen, you have made a false arrest, and shot me while defending my person — you — four to one!— and caused the death of your accomplice; what more do you want?’

‘You must accompany us to the county gaol, Sir; where I’ll hand in your committal.’

‘Dr. Toole, I presume, may dress my arm?’

‘Certainly, Sir.’

‘Good! what more?’

‘There’s a coach at the door, you’ll please to step in, Sir.’

‘Good, Sir, again; and now permit me to make a remark. I submit, Sir, to all this violence, and will go with you, under protest, and with a distinct warning to you, Mr. Lowe, and to your respectable body-guard of prize-fighters and ruffians — how many?— two, four, five, six, upon my honour, counting the gentleman upon the floor, and yourself, Sir — seven, pitted against one old fellow, ha, ha, ha!— a distinct warning, Sir, that I hold you accountable for this outrage, and all its consequences.’

‘See to that man; I’m afraid he has killed him,’, said Lowe.

He was not dead, however, but, as it seemed, suffering intense pain, and unable to speak except in a whisper. They got him up with his back to the wall.

‘You issue a warrant against another man whom I believe to be dead, and execute it upon me — rather an Irish proceeding, Sir; but, perhaps, if not considered impertinent, you will permit me to enquire what is the particular offence which that other person has committed, and for which you have been pleased to shoot me?’

‘You may read it on the warrant, Sir; ’tis for a murderous assault on Doctor Sturk.’

‘Hey? better and better! why, I’m ready to pay five hundred guineas to make him speak; and you’ll soon find how expensive a blunder you’ve committed, Sir,’ observed Dangerfield, with a glare of menace through his hollow smile.

‘I’ll stand that hazard, Sir,’ rejoined Lowe, with a confident sneer.

The dreadful sounds of the brief scuffle had called up the scared and curious servants. The smell of the pistol-smoke, the sight of blood, the pale faces of the angry and agitated men, and the spectacle of their master, mangled, ghastly, and smiling, affrighted Mrs. Jukes; and the shock and horror expressed themselves in tears and distracted lamentations.

‘I must have your keys, Sir, if you please,’ said Mr. Lowe.

‘A word first — here, Jukes,’ he addressed his housekeeper; ‘stop that, you fool!’ (she was blubbering loudly) ‘’tis a mistake, I tell you; I shall be back in an hour. Meanwhile, here are my keys; let Mr. Lowe, there, have them whenever he likes — all my papers, Sir (turning to Lowe). I’ve nothing, thank Heaven! to conceal. Pour some port wine into that large glass.’

And he drank it off, and looked better; he appeared before on the point of fainting.

‘I beg pardon, gentlemen — will you drink some wine?’

‘I thank you, no, Sir. You’ll be good enough to give me those keys’ (to the housekeeper).

‘Give them — certainly,’ said Dangerfield.

‘Which of them opens the chest of drawers in your master’s bed-chamber facing the window?’ He glanced at Dangerfield, and thought that he was smiling wider, and his jaws looked hollower, as he repeated —

‘If she does not know it, I’ll be happy to show it you.’

With a surly nod, Mr. Lowe requited the prisoner’s urbanity, and followed Mrs. Jukes into her master’s bed-chamber; there was an old-fashioned oak chest of drawers facing the window.

‘Where’s Captain Cluffe?’ enquired Lowe.

‘He stopped at his lodgings, on the way,’ answered the man; ‘and said he’d be after us in five minutes.’

‘Well, be good enough, Madam, to show me the key of these drawers.’

So he opened the drawers in succession, beginning at the top, and searching each carefully, running his fingers along the inner edges, and holding the candle very close, and grunting his disappointment as he closed and locked each in its order.

In the mean time, Doctor Toole was ushered into the little parlour, where sat the disabled master of the Brass Castle. The fussy little mediciner showed in his pale, stern countenance, a sense of the shocking reverse and transformation which the great man of the village had sustained.

‘A rather odd situation you find me in, Doctor Toole,’ said white Mr. Dangerfield, in his usual harsh tones, but with a cold moisture shining on his face; ‘under duresse, Sir, in my own parlour, charged with murdering a gentleman whom I have spent five hundred guineas to bring to speech and life, and myself half murdered by a justice of the peace and his discriminating followers, ha, ha, ha! I’m suffering a little pain, Sir; will you be so good as to lend me your assistance?’

Toole proceeded to his task much more silently than was his wont, and stealing, from time to time, a glance at his noticeable patient with the wild gray eyes, as people peep curiously at what is terrible and repulsive.

‘’Tis broken, of course,’ said Dangerfield.

‘Why, yes, Sir,’ answered Toole; ‘the upper arm — a bullet, Sir. H’m, ha — yes; it lies only under the skin, Sir.’

And with a touch of............