back to the gate again, and as he clutched it he
looked up at the silent house.

Even as he did so he caught a little spit of flame from one of the
windows and a bullet splashed into the water beside his head. There
was another spit of flame, and he felt his knuckles tingle as though
they had been rapped with a red-hot iron.

Then Andrieff gripped him by the collar, and with his aid he
scrambled back onto the path.

Alexis, who had been quick to see the necessity of instant action, was
by this time firing back at the place from which the little spits of
flame had come far above them. In the darkness he answered shot for
shot.

After the sound of the shots came a complete silence, and Paul, as he
stood stock-still beside the gate, which was now swinging idly over
the moat, could hear the patter of the water on the path as it dripped
from his clothes.

Andrieff, as soon as he had seen that Paul was safe, had run along the
hedge, and now he gave a shout.

"This is the gate we want," he cried.

But a third spit of flame came from the darkness overhead, and Paul
heard the overseer swearing softly under his breath. Whoever their
unknown assailant might be, he was no mean marksman.

Paul and Alexis ran to Andrieff's aid.

"What's up?" asked Paul.

"Nothing," answered Andrieff, and he got the gate opened. The three
men dashed up the path and reached a small door; but it was made of
stout oak, and securely fastened within.

They thrust their shoulders against it without avail, and then stood
looking at one another, panting, and for the moment baffled.

It was then that Paul's quick ear caught a woman's voice. He whipped
round and looked across the sheet of water. His eyes were now well
accustomed to the gloom, and he saw the form of a woman leaning far
out of a window and gesticulating wildly.

He held up his hand to the others for silence, and then once more
came a voice which he instantly recognized. It was the voice of the
red-haired woman.

"Be quick! Be quick!" she cried. "If you don't wish to be too late,
you must swim the moat--the door is barred."

Paul cast a quick glance behind him, and his eyes fell on the gate.

"Use that as a battering ram," he ordered, and then his jaws closed
over the butt of his revolver.

Without hesitation he waded in, and a few strong strokes brought him
beneath the window out of which Madame Estelle leant and waved.

He knew instinctively by her accents that she was t