and
we have therefore ventured to come to your rescue."

The old lady with the red face and the black eyebrows looked at us for
a moment with something of the apoplectic stare of a parrot. Then she
said, with a sudden gust or breathing of relief:

"Rescue? Where is Mr Greenwood? Where is Mr Burrows? Did you say you had
rescued me?"

"Yes, madam," said Rupert, with a beaming condescension. "We have very
satisfactorily dealt with Mr Greenwood and Mr Burrows. We have settled
affairs with them very satisfactorily."

The old lady rose from her chair and came very quickly towards us.

"What did you say to them? How did you persuade them?" she cried.

"We persuaded them, my dear madam," said Rupert, laughing, "by knocking
them down and tying them up. But what is the matter?"

To the surprise of every one the old lady walked slowly back to her seat
by the window.

"Do I understand," she said, with the air of a person about to begin
knitting, "that you have knocked down Mr Burrows and tied him up?"

"We have," said Rupert proudly; "we have resisted their oppression and
conquered it."

"Oh, thanks," answered the old lady, and sat down by the window.

A considerable pause followed.

"The road is quite clear for you, madam," said Rupert pleasantly.

The old lady rose, cocking her black eyebrows and her silver crest at us
for an instant.

"But what about Greenwood and Burrows?" she said. "What did I understand
you to say had become of them?"

"They are lying on the floor upstairs," said Rupert, chuckling. "Tied
hand and foot."

"Well, that settles it," said the old lady, coming with a kind of bang
into her seat again, "I must stop where I am."

Rupert looked bewildered.

"Stop where you are?" he said. "Why should you stop any longer where you
are? What power can force you now to stop in this miserable cell?"

"The question rather is," said the old lady, with composure, "what power
can force me to go anywhere else?"

We both stared wildly at her and she stared tranquilly at us both.

At last I said, "Do you really mean to say that we are to leave you
here?"

"I suppose you don't intend to tie me up," she said, "and carry me off?
I certainly shall not go otherwise."

"But, my dear madam," cried out Rupert, in a radiant exasperation, "we
heard you with our own ears crying because you could not get out."

"Eavesdroppers often hear rather misleading things," replied the captive
grimly. "I suppose I did bre