Comte had not lost his presence of mind. Already he had jumped
out of the carriage, banging the door to behind him, despite feeble
protests from his sister; pistol in hand he tried with anxious eyes to
pierce the inky blackness around him.

A muffled groan on his right caused him to turn in that direction.

"Release my coachman," he called peremptorily, "or I fire."

"Easy, M. le Comte," came as a sharp warning out of the night, in those
same weirdly familiar tones; "as like as not you would be shooting your
own men in this infernal darkness."

"Who is it?" whispered Crystal hoarsely. "I seem to know that voice."

"God protect us," murmured Jeanne. "It's the devil's voice,
Mademoiselle."

Mme. la Duchesse said nothing. No doubt she was too frightened to speak.
Her thin, bony fingers were clasped tightly round her niece's hands.

Suddenly there was another scuffle by the door, the sharp report of a
pistol and then that strangely familiar voice called out again:

"Merely as a matter of form, M. le Comte!"

"You will hang for this, you rogue," came in response from the Comte.

But already Crystal had torn her hands out of Mme. la Duchesse's grasp
and now was struggling to free herself from Jeanne's terrified and
clinging embrace.

"Father!" she cried wildly. "Maurice! Maurice! Help! Let me go, Jeanne!
They are hurting him!"

She had succeeded in pushing Jeanne roughly away and already had her
hand on the door, when it was opened from the outside, and the
flickering light of a carriage lanthorn fell full on the interior of the
vehicle. Neither Crystal nor Mme. la Duchesse could effectually suppress
a sudden gasp of terror, whilst Jeanne threw her shawl right over her
head, for of a truth she thought that here was the devil himself.

The light illumined the lanthorn-bearer only fitfully, but to the
terror-stricken women he appeared to be preternaturally tall and broad,
with wide caped coat pulled up to his ears and an old-fashioned tricorne
hat on his head; his face was entirely hidden by a black mask, and his
hands by black kid gloves.

"I pray you ladies," he said quietly, and this time the voice was
obviously disguised and quite unrecognisable. "I pray you have no fear.
Neither I nor my men will do you or yours the slightest harm, if you
will allow me without any molestation on your part to make an
examination of the interior of your carriage."

Mme. la Duchesse and Jeanne remained silent: the one from fe