Blodget, with eyes like a hyena, cast a glance round the room. A silk dress was upon a couch, and on the dressing-table were various articles of female apparel and jewelry. He approached, on tip-toe, the door of the bedchamber, and listened most intently. The sound of one breathing rather heavily in sleep, came upon his ears. ‘She sleeps,’ muttered Blodget, ‘and my task is consequently all the easier of performance. Yes, she sleeps, and soundly too.’ He now took from his pocket a gag made of cork and string, and so constructed that if once fixed in any one’s mouth it would be out of the question for them to utter an articulate sound. This, with a silk handkerchief, which he intended to fix around the head and face of his prisoner, were the implements with which he hoped to capture Inez, and by the aid of which so to terrify her that he might get away in safety with her. ‘Now for it,’ he said. He took another step towards the door of the bedchamber, and then he hesitated. ‘A good thought,’ he muttered. ‘I will put out both the lights, and then no curious eye will see me emerge from the window with my prize.’ He crept back and blew out each of the little oil lamps that were in the separate rooms. All was darkness then; but it was evident there was another lamp in the actual bedchamber itself. It was convenient for Blodget that there should be, at all events for a brief space, a light there. ‘Now courage and impudence assist me,’ he muttered. As he spoke he on tiptoe glided into the bedchamber in which he would have wagered his life that Inez now slept. The difficulty, though, he thought was really and truly at an end, when he, as he fancied, found himself so far successful as to be actually in the sleeping chamber of the young lady. No wonder that even he, accustomed as he was to all sorts of escapades and strange eventful proceedings, felt a little affected at his own temerity when he set foot within the sacred precincts of that chamber. The idea of what Monteagle would think and say when he heard of this evidence of unexampled audacity came across the mind of the unscrupulous villain, and for a moment he hesitated. It struck him that, after all, such an outrage was of so diabolical and daring a character, that it would be difficult to say what might be the result of it. But it was not for long that such a man as Blodget ever hesitated about the completion of an act of atrocity, or boldness or baseness. ‘Let him take it how he may,’ thought Blodget, ‘I’ll carry out my designs; and if danger should come to Inez in the carrying it out, that is her own fault.’ He listened intently. The regular breathing of some one in a deep sleep still came upon his ears. Now the chief difficulty was to get away with his captive without noise, and there was but one way of doing that. It was so to terrify Inez, that for her life’s sake and that of her father she would obey the directions he might give her.