o escape your peril, or else to fall a victim.
To escape it you must go quietly down the stairs and out of the house.
The being who rules your life will be away for this one evening, and you
will escape through his room by the window, which is close to the
ground."

Bilk started once more. _He_ knew the doctor was to be out that
evening, but what short of supernatural vision could tell the gipsies of
it?

"You must escape in the long white robe, and run past here on to the
cross roads. No one will see you. At the cross roads there is a post
with four arms. You must climb it and sit on the arm pointing this way
until the clock strikes twelve. The peril will then be past, and your
fortune will be made. Not a word. Go, and beware, Alexander Magnus
Bilk!"

The legs of the scared Alexander could scarcely uphold him as he obeyed
this last order, and sped trembling towards the school. The gipsies sat
motionless as his footsteps echoed down the lane and died slowly away
into silence.

Then they rose to go also; but as they did so other footsteps suddenly
sounded, approaching them. With an alacrity astonishing in persons of
their advanced age they darted back to their place of retreat; but too
late. The footsteps came on quickly, and followed them to their very
hiding-place, and next moment the light of two bullseyes turned full
upon them, and the aged couple were in the hands of the police.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOURCHAPTER TWO.

De Prudhom did not often allow himself the luxury of an evening out
during term time. But on this particular evening he was pledged to
fulfil a long-standing engagement with an old crony and fellow-bachelor,
residing about two miles from the school. By some mysterious means the
worthy dominie's intentions had oozed out, and Bilk was by no means the
only boy who had heard of it. Mice seem to find out by instinct when
the cat is away, and fix their own diversions accordingly.

I merely mention this to explain that as far as Alexander Magnus was
concerned no night could have been more favourable for carrying out the
intricate series of instructions laid down by the gipsy for the making
of his fortune. With this reflection he consoled himself somewhat as he
ran back to the school.

The doctor had already started for his evening's dissipation, if dining
with Professor Hammerhead could be thus described. This eccentric old
gentleman combined in one the avocations of a bachelor, a man o