. You shall write your gendarme frien' that he
return to me my property, _one day's time,_ or I send him by parcel post
two nice, fresh-out right-hands -- your sweetheart's and your own!"

Stormont drew Eve's head close to his:

"This man is blood mad or out of his mind! I'd better go out and take a
chance at him before the others come back."

But the girl shook her head violently, caught him by the arm and drew
him toward the mouth of the tile down which Clinch always emptied his
hootch when the Dump was raided.

But now, it appeared that the tile which protruded from the cement floor
was removable.

In silence she began to unscrew it, and he, seeing what she was trying
to do, helped her.

Together they lifted the heavy tile and laid it on the floor.

"You open thees door!" shouted Quintana in a paroxysm of fury. "I give
you one minute! Then, by God, I kill you both!"

Eve lifted a screen of wood through which the tile had been set. Under
it a black hole yawned. It was a tunnel made of three-foot aqueduct
tiles; and it led straight into star Pond, two hundred feet away.

Now, as she straightened up and looked silently at Stormont, they heard
the trample of boots in the kitchen, voices, the bang of gun-stocks.

"Does that drain lead into the lake?" whispered Stormont.

She nodded.

"Will you follow me, Eve?"

She pushed him aside, indicating that he was to follow her.

As she stripped the hunting jacket from her, a hot colour swept her
face. But she dropped on both knees, crept straight into the tile and
slipped out of sight.

As she disappeared, Quintana shouted something in Portuguese, and fired
at the lock.

With the smash of splintering wood in his ears, Stormont slid into the
smooth tunnel.

In an instant he was shooting down a polished toboggan slide, and in
another moment was under the icy water of Star Pond.

Shocked, blinded, fighting his way to the surface, he felt his spurred
boots dragging at him like a ton of iron. Then to him came her helping
hand.

"I can make it," he gasped.

But his clothing and his boots and the icy water began to tell on him in
mid-lake.

Swimming without effort beside him, watching his every stroke, presently
she sank a little and glided under him and a little ahead, so that his
hands fell upon her shoulders.

He let them rest, so, aware now that it was no burden to such a swimmer.
Supple and silent as a swimming otter, the girl slipped lithely th