me, but
they would knock me about."

On the whole, he decided that it would not be pleasant to be knocked
about. The kick he had received was a foretaste of what he might
expect, and after a little consideration he came to the conclusion that
his duty was to escape, and get back to the cutter as quickly as he
could.

To do this he must scheme, lie hid till morning, then make for the
nearest point, and signal for help, unless a boat's crew were already
searching for him.

How to escape?

The door was, he well knew, fast. The window was barred, but he went to
it, and tried the bars one by one, to find them all solidly fitted into
the stone sill.

Perhaps there was another way out, and to prove that he went softly
round to feel the oak panelling which covered the walls, to come upon a
door directly. His hopes began to rise, but they fell directly, for he
found it was a closet.

Next moment, as he felt his way about, his hand touched an old-fashioned
marble mantelpiece.

Fireplace--chimney! Yes, if other ways failed, he could escape up the
chimney.

No, that was too bad. He could not do that. And if he did, it would
only be to reach the roof of the house, and perhaps find no way down.

He went on, and found a closet to match the first on the other side of
the fireplace. Then all round the room. Panels everywhere, but no
means of escape, and he went again to stand at the window, to bemoan his
stupidity for allowing a weak girl to make a prisoner of him in so
absurd a way.

Sympathy and pity for the dwellers in the Hoze were completely gone now,
and he set his teeth fast, and mentally called himself a weak idiot for
ever thinking about such people. For the first few minutes he had felt
something uncommonly like alarm, and had dwelt upon the consequences to
himself if the smugglers found the spy upon their proceedings; but that
dread had passed away in the idea that he had to do his duty, and before
he could do that he must escape.

A chair or two. Then an easy-chair. A narrow table against the wall in
two places. An awkwardly-shaped high-backed chair with elbows and
cushions. A thick carpet in the centre. Nothing else in the room, as
far as he could make out in the darkness, and if those wretched bars had
only been away, how soon he could have escaped!

He went and tried to force his head through, recalling as he did that
where a person's head would go the rest of the body would pass. But
ther