"Believe it or not, I'm going to finish him," growled the man in response. "Dead men tell no tales, my girl, and her precious ladyship won't do us no harm. And as for other things----" Their laughter filled the vaulted chamber, sending the echoes chasing back and forth. Cleek's heart sank like lead. So this was to be the end. This. After all his escapes, all his plans for the precious future with Ailsa. His soul was sick within him. "Come, let's have one more drink of the old girl's wine. Pretty good taste, too, and then we'll put this johnny to sleep for good," went on the man in a calm, steady voice as though the task of putting people to sleep for good was an easy matter. "Are you sure it's safe to leave 'im?" asked Aggie. "There might have been someone else on the watch." "Not a soul, my dear. Come on!" Still laughing, they passed into the inner room, leaving Cleek trussed up like a fowl upon the floor and utterly helpless to assist himself. In his anxiety to find the girl whom he had driven all unconsciously into danger, Cleek had had no thought for himself, and he felt that any help that Dollops might bring would be too late to save him. The studded door swung back on its hinges, and all was as silent as the grave it would so soon become. Two minutes passed, three--five--perhaps ten, and still the quiet was unbroken. Cleek, his eyes strained toward the window which he would have given worlds to be able to reach or drag himself to, waited like a mouse in a trap. Suddenly an odd gleam of sunlight came through the dust-laden, begrimed window, and as it did so, it lit up two tiny shreds of substance which caused Cleek's heart to leap to his throat. With his unmistakable gift of memory, he knew from whence they came, he knew now many things. He knew how Lady Margaret had escaped and also, if his memory served him rightly, the identity of the person who had assisted her, though for what ends it was impossible to know. Suddenly on his reverie a sound broke at last and Cleek braced himself for the end. To die like this--like a rat in a trap with no chance to fight for one's self! Well, it was Fate, and he could not quarrel with it. But this was no sound of triumphant captor, rather of someone moving down the stone passage with the greatest of caution. It was so faint that ears less keen than his might not have detected it. And at first he thought it was the man come to finish his task or even Aggie, his companion. Yet at the first soft footfall he knew it was neither of them. Then inch by inch the door pushed its way open until it was wide enough to allow the slight body of Dollops to pass through. At the sight of his master he leapt forward and whipping out a knife cut the bond that bound him. Cleek stretched his head luxuriously. "Dollops, lad, that was a narrow shave," he said with a sudden little laugh. But the boy's face was grave.