ightfulness--that I didn't recognize.

When I reached the open Flynn was dancing round the belligerents like an
excited boxer, occasionally springing in to land a blow; and all the
while Elsie continued to address her captive and the world at large in
her native tongue. Flynn was rather more than sixty, and Elsie was not
much his junior, while the invader was young and agile. The man had
loosened one arm and drawn a revolver with which he was pounding Elsie
in the face. I knocked the gun from his hand with my walking-stick and
shouted to Elsie to let go of him. Her shouts had roused the guards and,
hearing answering cries and the beat of hurrying feet on the walks, he
redoubled his efforts to escape. I had hardly got my hands on him when
with a twist of his body he wrenched himself free and sped away in the
darkness.

I hadn't gone far in pursuit of him before I tripped over the skirts of
my dressing-gown and fell into a bed of cannas. This would have been
less melancholy if Flynn, hard behind, hadn't stumbled over me and,
believing he had captured the enemy, gripped my legs until I could
persuade him to let go.

The lights now flared on all the walks and driveways, and Antoine was
bellowing orders to the guards to surround the sunken garden. I surmised
that the fugitive, surprised by the attack, had lost his bearings and
was now far from the boundary wall back of the garage from which
presumably he had entered the grounds. With the Sound cutting off his
exit beyond the residence, there was a fair chance of catching him if
Antoine's veterans were at all vigilant.

I found Antoine, armed with a club and swinging a lantern, majestically
posed at the nearer entrance to the garden. With a swallow-tail coat
over his night-shirt and his nightcap tipped over one ear, he was an
enthralling figure. As he strode toward me his slippers flapped weirdly
upon the brick walk. "There's somebody in the garden, sir," he whispered
huskily. "The troops has it surrounded." No general in all history,
reporting in some critical hour the disposition of his army, could have
been more composed.

"You have done well, Antoine. Shall you dig in until morning or go over
the top now?"

"As you say, sir. It's better you should take charge."

I walked round the garden and found his men well distributed, but the
old fellows were exceedingly nervous. "It's a bit suspicious, sir, that
he broke for the garden," remarked Antoine.

"He broke for th