"They was down on me about an hour after. The fog had come on pretty thick and I was walkin' up and down out there thinkin'. I hadn't no more than another hour of it and pleasin' myself to think how mad that old devil would be when he'd found out what had happened and me safe in my own house with the mother, when all of a sudden I hear the car snortin'. 'Somethin' up,' I says, and three seconds later, as you might say, they was on me. If it hadn't been for that fog I might of got clear, but they was on me before I knew it. I had a bit of a struggle with they dirty stinkin' foreigners, but they got a lot of dirty tricks an Englishman would be ashamed of using. Anyway they had me down on the ground pretty quick and hurt me too. "They trussed me up like a fowl, carried me into the hall, and didn't the old red-headed devil spit and curse? You've never seen nothing like it, sir. Sure raving mad he was that time all right. And he came and kicked me on the face and pulled my beard and spat in my eyes. I don't know what's coming to us right now, but I pray the Almighty Father to give me just one turn with my fist. I'll land him. "Then, sir, they carried me upstairs and tumbled me into a dark room. There I was for I wouldn't like to say how long. Then they came in and took my things off me, the dirty foreigners. It's only a foreigner would think of a thing like that. I struggled a bit, but what's the use? They put their thumb in your back and they've got you. Then they tied me up here. I had to laugh, I did really. Did you ever see such a comic picture as all three of us without a stitch between us tied up here at six in the morning? "When I tell mother about it she'll laugh all right. Like the show down to St. Ives when they have the boxing. I suppose we'll be getting out of this all serene, sir, won't we?" "Of course we will," said Dunbar. "Don't you worry, Jabez. He's been doing all this to frighten us. He daren't touch us really. Why, he'll have the county about his ears as it is. Don't you worry." "Thank you, sir," said Jabez, still moving from side to side within the bands, "because you see, sir, I wouldn't like anything to happen to me just now. Mother's expectin' an addition to the family in a month or so and there's six on 'em already, an' it needs a bit of doing looking after them all. I wouldn't have been working for this dirty blackguard here if it hadn't been for there being so many of us--not that I'd have one of them away if you understand me, sir." "You needn't be afraid, Jabez," Dunbar said. "When we get out of this Mr. Harkness and I will see that you never have any anxiety again. You've been a wonderful friend to us to-night and we're not likely to forget it."