'Well, perish, then, if you won't sign this paper--it is stamped and ready; but, till you sign it or die, the water remains in this flagon,' replied Wyburg, placing a tall German beer-jug full of sparkling water in tantalising proximity to the wretched man's lips, and then putting it on the table, while madame looked on approvingly, her black eyes gleaming, her pale face radiant with malice and greed, her jaw looking more square, and her tiger mouth more tigerish than ever. Somehow the words of Wyburg seemed to introduce a practical and reasonable, if intensely obnoxious, element into what seemed the phantasmal horror of a prolonged nightmare to Sir Redmond Sleath. 'What is the sum?' he asked, huskily. 'Three hundred pounds English money.' He groaned with rage at this renewed extortion; but, if money is precious, life is more precious still, and these Wyburgs he knew to be wretches without an atom of scruple, so he signed the cheque, which the Herr, who knew his autograph perfectly well, folded and handed to his better-half with a smile of grim satisfaction. 'Unbind me now,' said Sleath, faintly. 'Not if I know it, yet awhile,' replied the ruffian, who, though he acted so methodically, was half mad with revenge for his gashed visage, and the imbibing of absinthe and Danish corn-brandy. 'What are you about to do with me?' asked Sleath, imploringly, and with mortal fear in his face and accents. Wyburg made no reply, but proceeded with great deliberation to bore two holes in the wainscot of the attic, and, passing through them the ends of the ropes which bound his prisoner, told him that they were being secured by the Frau to a little cask of powder on the other side of the partition, and inserted in which there was a loaded and cocked revolver, and that the instant he moved or attempted pursuit or flight the tension of the ropes would cause an explosion that would blow him and the house to pieces! Herr Wyburg had made that which to him was a small fortune out of Sir Redmond, and dared not face any inquiry in case of that individual escaping and appealing to law; he was far in arrear with his house rent; he had sold his furniture twice over to different Jews in the Scharsteinweg, and now resolved to quit Hamburg for purer air; and, inspired by malice and revenge, he and his wife took their immediate departure, leaving the wretched Sleath minus watch, purse, and rings, and, as we have described, face to face with a miserable death, if he attempted to escape! CHAPTER XIII. WITH ROBERTS' COLUMN. 'Welcome back from the other world, Bob Wodrow!' exclaimed Toby Chace. 'The stable-call won't be new to you, though a good meal and a deep drink may be, I have no doubt. So we are to have a shy at these Afghan beggars again!' and while grooming his horse he began to sing the stable-call in verse, while rubbing down his charger after hissing away through his teeth in the most orthodox fashion,