“You are not afraid?” exclaimed Rainford, in a contemptuous tone, as he lighted a lamp: then, with impatient excitement, he cried, “Do your duty, and come with me. Life may still be left in her--come--come!” “Yes--yes: we shall go along with you, sure enough,” growled Dykes, as he led the way, followed by Rainford--the two runners closing the rear. In three minutes more the little party entered the dungeon which had so lately been the prison-house of Old Death: and there what a dreadful spectacle met their eyes! The murdered lady was stretched upon the floor--her countenance horribly discoloured and swollen--the forehead completely smashed by the blow inflicted by the lamp which had been dashed at her--and her eyes staring with a stony glare, as if about to start out of their sockets. “O Tamar! Tamar! my dearest--best beloved Tamar!” cried Tom Rain, in a tone of bitter--bitter anguish, as he threw himself upon his knees by the side of the corpse. The officers, rude in heart, and rendered obdurate as they were by the very nature of their profession, stood back in respectful silence at this outburst of sorrow from the lips of the resuscitated highwayman. “My God!” murmured the unhappy man, clasping his hands together; “who shall break these fearful tidings to your father and your sister? And will they not reproach me?--will they not attribute this frightful calamity to that project of reformation which I had devised in behalf of Benjamin Bones? O Tamar--my dearest Tamar--who could have foreseen that such a terrible destiny was in store for thee!” And, bowing down his head, he wept bitterly. Suddenly loud voices were heard from the top of the spiral stair-case, summoning Dykes thither. “Come along, sir--it is useless to remain here!” cried the officer, speaking hastily but respectfully to Tom Rain, who suffered himself to be led away--or rather, he did not offer any resistance to those who conducted him thence. “Well--what now!” demanded Dykes, hurrying up the steps, at the head of which his friend Bingham was continuing to shout after him. “Why--don’t you know,” was the reply, “that Government has offered a reward for the diskivery of the chap wot carried off Sir Christopher Blunt and Dr. Lascelles--about that there Torrens’s affair----” “Well--what then?” cried Dykes, impatiently. “Blowed if it ain’t Tom Rain,” responded Bingham: “he did it--and we’ve knabbed him. So that’s a cool two hundred and fifty a piece!” “By goles!” ejaculated Dykes, his countenance expanding into the most glorious humour possible, as if all remembrance of the horrible scene he had just witnessed were banished from his mind: “this is good news, though,” he added, as he emerged from the stair-case into the little back room with which it communicated. “But how do you know that the chap as kidnapped the knight and the doctor is Mr. Rainford?”