In truth the other was coming, though still turning and turning again, to see that his supposed victim was following him. And he did see that that supposed victim was following in his footsteps. Then he turned for the last time, gloating in his triumph, rejoicing that now--in a few moments--Granger would be gone from out his path for ever; turned to find himself confronted by three shadowy forms close to him, which, ere he could utter a cry, had sprung at him; one, the biggest and most burly, almost choking the life out of him with the brawny hands that were clenched upon his windpipe. Yet now he struggled to be free, as the rat in the trap, the panther caged, will struggle for freedom when snared and doomed; struggled so, that, at last, one of those figures struck him on the head with a bludgeon, and knocked him senseless. "Away," that burly figure cried now. "Away with him to the boat. The time is past. Hark to the anchor cable grating through the hawse-hole; they are making ready. Away with him." Whereupon they bore the miserable man off to the causeway, carrying him face downwards, and with still upon his face the vizard over which blood streamed now from the wound upon his crown, when, throwing him into the boat, they made off for the _Nederland_. Then Granger stepped out from the dark obscurity to which he had retreated after speaking to the sailor who had greeted him as the "first man" and had asked if the second was coming, and went back to meet that other shrouded figure which had taken his place. "He is gone," he said; "we are avenged and you are free. You heard?" Then, suddenly, he cried, as he saw Anne reel towards him, "What is it? You do not regret, surely?" "Nay," the girl replied, falling almost fainting into his arms. "Nay. There is no regret, and he deserves his fate--whatsoever it may be. Yet--yet--actress as I have been--the strain was too much. Granger, help me now to get back to your house to change my clothes, and, next, to get on board the _Mignonne_." "First come to the 'Red Rover' and have something to revive you. Come." "Hark," she said, pausing in the step she had taken towards the inn, "hark. What is that out there in the river? That shouting?" "It is the men's cries as they haul on to the halyards, so as to be ready when the wind comes. Yet the schooner has enough tide beneath her to carry her swiftly down to the open. Listen, Anne, their voices are becoming fainter. "I hear. They are moving." "They are moving. In ten minutes they will be gone." As they sat together later, and he ministered to her wants, recognising well that, without her bravery to assist him, he could never have turned the tables so thoroughly upon Bufton's villainous scheme as he had done, he remembered the fifty guineas which the latter had handed over to him at the last moment. Whereupon he passed them over to the girl.