The side door of the Dower House stood half-open. The fugitive drew nearer and nearer to it; the pursuers seemed to make still more violent exertions to overtake him before he reached it. A few yards more! Ah! he was inside: the door was closing. But before it was quite shut, the first pursuer flung himself forward and thrust his musket within. To close the door was now impossible. For a few seconds the Frenchman appeared to be engaged in a fierce trial of strength with the persons inside. Two or three of his companions joined him; they threw themselves together upon the door; it yielded; and they dashed into the house. CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND John Trevanion in the Toils With the aid of imagination’s magic boots we skip now from the Towers to the village, and see what was happening there. The _Isaac and Jacob_ lay alongside the jetty, in charge of half-a-dozen Frenchmen who lolled lazily about the deck. Nathan Pendry, who had steered the vessel into harbour, reclined, the picture of scowling discontent, against the bulwarks. Below, in the dark, reeking hold, trussed like fowls, lay Isaac Tonkin, Simon Mail, and two more of the most respected smugglers of Polkerran. It appeared from Tonkin’s story, told many a time in after years to the breathless company in the parlour of the Three Jolly Mariners, that on arriving in Roscoff to purchase his Christmas cargo, he had been sought out by Jean Delarousse, whose customer he had formerly been. The Frenchman did not complain of Tonkin’s desertion, nor did he seek a renewal of their trade relations; his sole object was to persuade the Cornishman, by means of a heavy bribe, to deliver John Trevanion into his hands. Tonkin had his grievance against Trevanion. He felt sore at having had to play second fiddle to the younger man in recent smuggling transactions. But being an honest fellow, and loyal in grain, he rejected Delarousse’s offer with indignant scorn, and refused to believe what he understood of the tale poured into his ears in broken English, of a long course of deceit and fraud by which, as Delarousse alleged, Trevanion had enriched himself at his partner’s expense. The Frenchman had appeared to take his refusal in good part, and Tonkin, having freighted his lugger, put to sea on his return voyage, intending to run his cargo at the creek in the small hours of Friday morning as arranged.