The quick-witted villain saw the pressing danger in a moment.  “To the back door or we are lost!” he yelled.  Bartley dashed round to that door with a cry of dismay.

But Grace was before him just half a minute.  She ran through the house.

Alas! the infernal door was secure.  The woman had locked it when she went out.  Grace came flying back to the front, and drew the bolt softly.  But as she did so she heard a hammering, and found the door was fast.  Unluckily, Hope’s tool-basket was on the window-ledge, and Monckton drove a heavy nail obliquely through the bottom of the door, and it was immovable.  Then Mary slipped with cat-like step to the window, and had her hand on the sill to vault clean out into the road; she was perfectly capable, it being one of her calisthenic exercises.  But here again her watchful enemy encountered her.  He raised his hammer as if to strike her hand—­though perhaps he might not have gone that length—­but she was a woman, and drew back at that cruel gesture.  Instantly he closed the outside shutters; he didn’t trouble about the window, but these outside shutters he proceeded to nail up; and, as the trap was now complete, he took his time, and by a natural reaction from his fears, he permitted himself to exult a little.

“Thank you, Mr. Hope, for the use of your tools.” (Rat-tat.) “There, my little bird, you’re caged.” (Rat-tat-tat.) “Did you really think—­(rat-tat)—­two men—­(rat-tat-tat)—­were to be beaten by one woman?”

The prisoner thus secured, he drew aside with justifiable pride to admire his work.  This action enabled him to see the side of the cottage he had secured so cleverly in front and behind, and there was Grace Hope coming down from her bedroom window; she had tied two crimson curtains together by a useful knot, which is called at sea a fisherman’s bend, fastened one end to the bed or something, and she was coming down this extemporized rope, hand over hand alternately, with as much ease and grace as if she were walking down marble steps.  Monckton flung his arm and body wildly over the paling and grabbed her with his finger ends, she gave a spang with her heels against the wall, and took a bold leap away from him into a tulip-bed ten feet distant at least:  he yelled to Bartley, “To the garden;” and not losing a moment, flung his leg over the paling to catch her, with Bartley’s help, in this new trap.  Mary dashed off without a moment’s hesitation at the quick-set hedge; she did not run up to it and hesitate like a woman, for it was not to be wriggled through; she went at it with the momentum and impetus of a race-horse, and through it as if it was made of blotting-paper, leaving a wonderfully small hole, but some shreds of her dress, and across the meadow at a pace that neither Bartley nor Monckton, men past their prime, could hope to rival even if she had not got the start.  They gazed aghast at one another; at the premises so suddenly emptied as if by magic; at the crimson curtain floating like a banner, and glowing beautifully amongst the green creepers; and at that flying figure, with her hair that glittered in the sun, and streamed horizontal in the wind with her velocity, flying to the mine to save William Hope, and give these baffled conspirators a life of penal servitude.