After what seemed a very long time, he heard footsteps coming down a creaking stair. A crack of light showed him where the door of his prison was. He found that he had instinctively braced himself, and flushed in the darkness. He forced himself to relax, and to lie as though at his ease, betraying none of the alarm he felt. A Johnny Raw he might be, but he was also Ware of Sale, and no common felon should have the satisfaction of seeing him afraid.

The door opened, and Mr. Shifnal came in, bearing a steaming bowl, and with a lantern slung over one wrist. The Duke recognized him at once, and remembered that it was he who had given him some potent liquor, many hours ago. He crooked his left arm under his head to raise it, and lay calmly regarding his gaoler.

Mr. Shifnal set the lamp down on the floor close to the Duke’s head, and looked at him closely. “That’s the barber!” he said cheerfully. “I thought you was backt at one time, guv’nor, but there’s nothing like a real rum bub for a cull as has been grassed. Not but what you didn’t have no more than a lick, but I doubt it done you good. I got some cat-lap here for you, seeing as how you was as sick as a cushion, and maybe used to pap. If you was to sit up, you could sup it down, couldn’t you?”

“Presently,” said the Duke. “Put it on the floor, if you please.”

Mr. Shifnal grinned down at him. “It ain’t no use for you to be cagged, guv’nor. The blow’s been bit, and you’ll have to stand buff if you want to get out of this cellar alive. Which, mind you, there’s some as holds you didn’t ought to get out alive, but I wouldn’t wish you to think I was one of them, because I ain’t. You drink up that cat-lap, and maybe you’ll feel able to talk business, which is what I come for.”

While he unburdened himself of this speech, not much of which was comprehensible to his prisoner, the Duke was taking unobtrusive stock of his surroundings. The cellar in which he lay was paved with stone flags and had no window. Its only outlet appeared to be the door through which Mr. Shifnal had entered and to which he held the ponderous key. As it opened inwards, there would be little chance of breaking out through it. The roof of the cellar was vaulted; it was quite a large room, and seemed to be used as a dumping-place for all manner of rubbish. A broken chair, several rusted cooking-pots, some sacks, an old broom, one or two cans, and a litter of broken casks and boxes and empty bottles were all it contained, except for the mattress on which the Duke lay.

Having taken this in, the Duke brought his gaze to bear on Mr. Shifnal, who had squatted down beside him on a folded sack. He saw that he had a pistol tucked into his boot, and said: “I thought when I first saw you that you were a groom, but I fancy I was wrong: you are a highwayman.”

“It don’t matter to you what my lay is,” responded Mr. Shifnal. “Maybe I’ll be a gentleman, and live at my ease afore many days is gone by.”

“Maybe,” agreed the Duke. “Or maybe you’ll be on your way to Botany Bay. One never knows,”

“Hard words break no bones,” said Mr. Shifnal. “Mind I don’t blame you for feeling peevy! It ain’t a pleasant thing to be bowled out, and you little more than a halfling. But don’t you worry, guv’nor! You’re well-equipt, you are, and there ain’t nothing to stop you loping off any time you says the word. The cove as wants to carry you out feet first ain’t here just at the moment. But he’s a-coming back, and it would be as well for you if you were gone afore he gets here. Now, maybe it’s because you’re just a noddy, or maybe it’s because I allus had a weakness for a game chicken, which I’ll allow you are, but I’ve taken quite a fancy to you, dang me if I ain’t! and I wouldn’t like for you to be put to bed with a shovel afore your time. You grease me in the hand, guv’nor, and do it handsome, and I’ll let you go afore this other cove comes back.”

“How long have I been here?” asked the Duke, asthough he had not attended to a word of this.

“You’ve been here ever since close on eleven last night, and you’ll likely—”

“What’s o’clock now?” interrupted the Duke, taking out his watch, which had stopped. “I must thank you, by the way, for not robbing me of my watch!”

“Ay, and it isn’t many as wouldn’t have had it off of you, and the ready and rhino in your pockets as well,” said Mr. Shifnal frankly. “I don’t see what it matters to you what time of day it is, because down in this cellar it don’t make any difference, but since you’re so particular anxious to know, it’s close on nine in the morning. And a fine, bright day it is, with the sun a-shining, and the birds all a-singing. Just the kind of day for a cove to be out and about!”

The Duke set his watch, and wound it up. Mr. Shifnal looked at it wistfully. “It’s a rare loge that,” he said. “It went to my heart not to snabble it.”

“Never mind!” said the Duke, sitting up with an effort. “You may have it, and the money in my pockets as well, if you leave that door unlocked.”

Mr. Shifnal smiled indulgently upon him. “I had a look in your pockets, guv’nor, and it’s low tide with you. It ain’t coachwheels I want, but flimseys.”

The Duke picked up the bowl of thin gruel, and sipped it resolutely. “How much?” he enquired.

“What do you say to fifty thousand Yellow Georges?” suggested Mr. Shifnal winningly.

“Why, that I thank you for the compliment you pay me in rating me at so high a figure, but that I fear I am not worth it.”

“Call it thirty!” said Mr. Shifnal. “Thirty wouldn’t seem no more to a well-blunted swell like you than what a Goblin would be to me!”

“Oh, I couldn’t pay you the half of thirty thousand!” said the Duke, swallowing some more of the gruel.

“Gammon!” replied Mr. Shifnal scornfully. “You could draw the bustle to twice that figure!”

“Not until I am twenty-five,” said the Duke.

The tranquility in his voice took Mr. Shifnal aback slightly. It seemed very wrong to him that this frail young swell should not be made to realize the dangerous nature of his position. He pointed it out to him. The Duke smiled at him absently, and went on sipping his gruel. “It ain’t no manner of use bamming me you ain’t as well-breeched a cove as any in the land, because I knows as how you are!” said Mr. Shifnal, nettled.

“Yes, I am very rich,” agreed the Duke. “But I do not yet control my fortune, you know.”

“There’s them as does as would pay it, and gladly, to have you back safe!”

The Duke appeared to consider this. “But perhaps they don’t want to have me back,” he suggested.

Mr. Shifnal was nonplussed. It began to seem as though his colleague’s notions, which he had been inclined to think fanciful, were not so far-fetched. Yet although Mr. Liversedge might return loaded down with money-bags given him by the Duke’s grateful cousin, Mr. Shifnal had a strong suspicion that his share in that wealth might not be commensurate with his deserts. It would, he thought, be a very much better plan for him to remove the Duke from his dungeon, and to pocket a ransom, before Mr. Liversedge could return from his mission. He would have the support of Mr. Mimms, he knew, because although Mr. Mimms would undoubtedly claim a share of any blood-money there might be, he did not want the Duke to be murdered on his premises; and he was mortally afraid of coming into serious contact with the Law. He shook his head at the Duke, and told him that he did not know what lay before him. But the Duke could not perceive any advantage to his captors in killing him, and considered that Mr. Shifnal’s references to the likelihood of his sudden taking-off were designed merely to frighten him into agreeing to the payment of an extortionate ransom. He finished the gruel, and set down the bowl.

“You better think it over, guv’nor!” Mr. Shifnal said. “You won’t have nothing else to do, so take your time! I’m striking the gigg now, and you won’t see no more of me, nor anyone, till I brings you your supper. I daresay you’ll be thinking different by then.”

He rose from the floor, picked up the bowl and the lantern, and went away, locking the door behind him. The Duke lowered himself on to his unpleasant pillow again, and bent his mind to the problem of how he was to escape. For he had made up his mind that escape he must and would.

No method immediately presented itself to him, and he wasted some time in cursing himself for not having gone armed to the Fair. His only weapon was his malacca cane, which had been propped against the broken chair, with his curly-brimmed beaver poised on top of it, and a malacca cane pitted against Mr. Shifnal’s pistol would stand little chance of success. The possibility of taking Mr. Shifnal off his guard seemed remote: he plainly held the Duke to be of little account, but he did not look as though he were in the habit of being taken off his guard. Moreover, the Duke was still feeling extremely battered, and he doubted whether he would have the physical strength to stun Mr. Shifnal. He thought that the most pressing need was to recruit his forces, and with this end in view he closed his eyes, and tried so hard to go to sleep that he did so at last through sheer exhaustion.

He was awakened, by the sound of footsteps again, but they did not come to his door. A heavy tread passed it; he heard a latch liftgratingly, and the sound as of a wooden case being dragged across the stone floor. Other and rather shuffling footsteps came down the stairs. The Duke heard the murmur of voices, and strained his ears in vain to catch what was being said. He failed, but as the footsteps passed his door again, a rough voice said: “Mind how you carry that, you clumsy chub! Give me them daffy-bottles!”

The Duke’s brows twitched together, for the voice was familiar. For a long time he could not place it, but by dint of recalling the various persons whom he had encountered during the preceding week he at last reached the right conclusion. The voice belonged to Mr. Mimms; and if that were so it was more than likely that his cellar lay under the Bird in Hand. And if that again were so, then there could be no doubt that Mr. Liversedge had had a hand in the abduction.