Then the old optimistic spirit triumphed. "Chance! There wasn't such a thing, for he hadn't yet set his hand to paper, and wouldn't if he could help it. The job's got to be tackled right at once," he told himself; "there's no time for delaying. But one thing's certain: this is the very gang Lord Wellington wishes to discover. For haven't I had proof positive? Then how to haul the whole lot by the heels? Ah, that's a conundrum! Precious queer for a fellow to be sitting in a hole like this, a prisoner, and to wonder how he's going to capture the fellows who have bagged him! Queer, I do think!" He actually smiled. Tom began to grin at the recollection of his good fortune, for he had had undoubtedly the best of the recent interview. He had, for the time being at any rate, hoodwinked a portion of the gang, and, seeing that the noise in the adjacent room, deafening after the entry of his late visitors, had now subsided into a gentle murmur, why, if noise was any criterion of his fortunes, the conspirators were easy in their minds. Seated in his corner, Tom began to pass each one of the individuals who composed the gang in review before him. Not that he could remember in detail all those ruffianly countenances; but there were some whose features had left an impression. The two fat men, for instance, rascals if ever there were any; then half a dozen of the others; and lastly, and to the exclusion of the remainder, the one he had taken for leader, the shadowy individual, obviously disguised, with the writhing hand across his mouth and the assumed voice. "Could that be José? No. The fellow was too short. But--but, awfully like him, that writhing hand. And the voice too?" Tom scratched his head, a luxury denied him a little earlier. "Bother the chap!" he cried. "Anyway, I hope it won't prove to be that precious cousin. All the better for him and for us when I come to round up this crowd!" How Jack Barwood would have roared with laughter at him! But let us tell the whole truth. Down in the depths of his own jovial heart of hearts Jack would have been, secretly, just a wee little bit jealous. For what thundering optimism was here! "The cheek of him!" he would decidedly have exclaimed. "Here's Tom foxing in a corner, with his hands freed when they're supposed to be lashed together. That's, so far as I can see, his only point of advantage. Against that single item he's a prisoner, locked in a room, with a band of cut-throat villains eating their supper beside him. And here he has the amazing cheek to think, and think seriously too, of the time when he'll have captured the lot, to even sympathize with a cousin who may possibly be the leader. Hoo!"