“If it please your honour we will break in this panel,” came the smooth, sneering voice that he loathed.

He turned sullenly.

They were opposite the old picture.  Beneath it there showed a crack in the wainscoting....  He could scarcely refuse leave.  Besides, the woodwork was flawed in any case—­he would pay for a new panel himself.

“There is nothing there!” he said doubtfully.

“Oh, no, sir,” said the man with a peculiar look.  “It is but to make a show—­”

The old man’s brows came down angrily.  Then he nodded; and, leaning against the window, watched them.

* * * * *

One of his own men came forward with a hammer and chisel.  He placed the chisel at the edge of the cracked panel, where the informer directed, and struck a blow or two.  There was the unmistakable dull sound of wood against stone—­not an echo of resonance.  The old man smiled grimly to himself.  The man must be a fool if he thought there could be any hole there!...  Well; he would let them do what they would here; and then forbid any further damage....  He wondered if the priest really were in the house or no.

The two men had their heads together now, eyeing the crack they had made....  Then the informer said something in a low voice that the old man could not hear; and the other, handing him the chisel and hammer, went out of the room, beckoning to one of the two others that stood waiting at the door.

“Well?” sneered the old man.  “Have you caught your bird?

“Not yet, sir.”

He could hear the steps of the others in the next room; and then silence.

“What are they doing there?” he asked suddenly.

“Nothing, sir....  I just bade a man wait on that side.”

The man was once more inserting the chisel in the top of the wainscoting; then he presently began to drive it down with the hammer as if to detach it from the wall.

Suddenly he stopped; and at the same instant the old man heard some faint, muffled noise, as of footsteps moving either in the wall or beyond it.

“What is that?”

The man said nothing; he appeared to be listening.

“What is that?” demanded the other again, with a strange uneasiness at his heart.  Was it possible, after all!  Then the man dropped his chisel and hammer and darted out and vanished.  A sudden noise of voices and tramplings broke out somewhere out of sight.

“God’s blood!” roared the old man in anger and dismay.  “I believe they have the poor devil!”

* * * * *

He ran out, two steps down the passage and in again at the door of the next room.  It was a bedroom, with two beds side by side:  a great press with open doors stood between the hearth and the window; and, in the midst of the floor, five men struggled and swayed together.  The fifth was a bearded young man, well dressed; but he could not see his face.