‘I carry a message from a friend of yours,’ said the stranger quickly--‘one Clerivault. He wished me to say that he followed you, despite your desire, and, having observed where you stood among the crowd, was able to give me directions, together with a description of your person, which led to this fortunate encounter. Your friend, I regret to say, has met with a mishap, and asks you to come to him.’ The frown which, on Brion’s face, had greeted the first part of this sentence, was changed to a look of pallor and alarm at the end. ‘Clerivault! Hurt!’ said he. ‘O! where is he?’ ‘He has been carried into a house,’ said the stranger. ‘I will show you where. It is not a stone’s throw away.’ They went off at a race together, down the very lane they were in. It was a mere deserted wynd, sunk like a deep ravine in a hill of gloomy stone. As he hurried on, the young man put an agitated question:-- ‘How hurt? You did not say.’ ‘A moment,’ said the stranger, stopping. ‘You will see for yourself in a moment.’ They had come to an iron-studded door set in the blank wall of a great building, and with a couple of steps leading up to it. The stranger took the steps at a bound, and knocked on the door. It was opened immediately, and he beckoned Brion to mount and follow. The boy, an easy prey in his excitement and inexperience, complied, unsuspecting. The moment he was in, the door slammed to behind him with a noise of thunder, which seemed to reverberate through adjacent halls; and darkness, profound after the sunshine of the streets, rushed upon him like a blinding night. He stood paralysed a moment, and then, ‘Where am I?’ he said aloud, groping out with his hands. And even in the act, as if he had proffered those for manacling, they were seized on either side in an iron grip, and he knew himself a prisoner to some unknown power. He gave a little gasp--he was only a boy, after all--struggled a little; and then, feeling the futility of his efforts, resigned himself to what Fate might develop. ‘That’s wise,’ said a gruff low voice in his ear. ‘Twenty to one’s too great odds for even a gentleman game cock, young master.’ CHAPTER XXII. A POIGNANT INTERVIEW