ng, they heard voices proceeding from a room along a
corridor and, as they crept up to it, they heard a man's voice say,
angrily:

"Now we ain't going to waste any more time. If you don't tell us
where your money is, we will knock you and the girl on the head.

"No, you can't talk, but you can point out where it is. We know
that you have got it.

"Very well, Bill, hit that young woman over the head with the butt
of your pistol. Don't be afraid of hurting her.

"Ah! I thought you would change your mind. So it is under the bed.

"Look under, Dick. What is there?"

"A square box," another voice said.

"Well, haul it out."

"Come on," Bob Repton whispered to the others; "the moment we are
in, shout."

Illustration: Bob and his Companions surprise the Burglars.

He stood for a moment in the doorway. A man was standing, with his
back to him, holding a pistol in his hand. Another, similarly
armed, stood by the side of a young woman who, in a loose dressing
gown, sat shrinking in an armchair, into which she had evidently
been thrust. A third was in the act of crawling under the bed. An
elderly man, in his nightshirt, was standing up. A gag had been
thrust into his mouth; and he was tightly bound, by a cord round
his waist, to one of the bedposts.

Bob sprang forward, whirling his hockey stick round his head, and
giving a loud shout of "Down with the villains!" the others
joining, at the top of their voices.

Before the man had time to turn round, Bob's stick fell, with all
the boy's strength, upon his ankle; and he went down as if he had
been shot, his pistol exploding as he fell. Bob raised his stick
again and brought it down, with a swinging blow, on the robber's
head.

The others had made a rush, together, towards the man standing by
the lady. Taken utterly by surprise, he discharged his pistol at
random, and then sprang towards the door. Two blows fell on him,
and Sankey and Fullarton tried to grapple with him; but he burst
through them, and rushed out.

Bob and Wharton sprang on the kneeling man, before he could gain
his feet; and rolled him over, throwing themselves upon him. He was
struggling furiously, and would soon have shaken them off, when the
other boys sprang to their assistance.

"You help them, Jim. I will get this cord off!" Fullarton said and,
running to the bed, began to unknot the cord that bound the
admiral.

The ruffian on the ground was a very powerful man, and the three
boys had t