When half-past ten rang out from the old French hall clock at the Banker’s Folly, Janet Fairbarn, a gray ghastly figure, made her last timid rounds of the lower part of the mansion. Her maids were all snugly nested for the night. Simpson, the erring one, she believed to be in close attendance upon that foreign heathen, Prince Djiddin, in their second-story wing. Miss Nadine and her maid had locked their apartments on departure, the Professor’s study was the only room open and vacant, and so with a last timid glance at the darkened halls and great salons of the main floor, the Scotch spinster retired to her rooms adjoining the Master’s study and bedrooms on the ground floor. Minded to “read a chapter” and to “compose herself for the night,” the housekeeper sat late rocking alone in her rooms, while the hollow tick of the hall clock sounded doubly lonely in the cheerless night. The modern castle’s walls were proof against the wildest rain and even the blows of a catapult, and so the dashing storm never even stirred the heavy leaded diamonded panes. “Thanks be to God, auld Andrew never ventured to cross on this raging sea! He’ll no be here the morrow, neither. I must send down for telegrams in the morning,” she mused when she had finally laid her spectacles across her Bible. It was nearing eleven o’clock when the two half-drowned thugs hiding on Rozel Head were roused by their returning mate stumbling wildly into the muddy cavern in the cliff. They sprang up as he muttered, “On vient, tout pres d’ici! Soyous tous prets!” A bottle extended was half drained by the two ruffians, who then eagerly loosened their black jaws with a mad desire to revenge their cheerless vigil. “Lei has,” whispered the spy, pointing to a black object creeping unsteadily up the steep path--Simpson, dreaming still of pretty Ann’s rounded white arms! It was indeed Simpson, with unsteady steps, breasting the hill. A fear of Andrew Fraser’s arrival led the half-fuddled old veteran to hasten homeward now. “I can say the telegram was late,” he chuckled. “They never will know.” And then feeling for his pocket-flask, filled by handsome Ann, “as a last night-cap,” he turned into the little cavern, where the school-boys, on a Saturday outing, often played “pirates,” for his breath was gone and his eyes were drenched with salt scud. Then, a half smothered cry arose, as the three waiting thugs leaped upon their prey. Simpson was taken off his guard! His muscles were all relaxed by drink. He fell prone as the heavy black jacks descended upon his head, muffled in the hood of his “dreadnaught.” “Ah! V’la un affaire bien fini! Allons! Jettez-le!” growled the grim boatswain, dropping his loaded club, as all three spurned the prostrate body, and then, with a heavy lurch, it bounded off the sodden bank plunging downward, over the cliff.