motionless eyes.

"The brigands!" cried Muscari, with a kind of monstrous gaiety. "This
was a trap. Ezza, if you will oblige me by shooting the coachman first,
we can cut our way out yet. There are only six of them."

"The coachman," said Ezza, who was standing grimly with his hands in his
pockets, "happens to be a servant of Mr Harrogate's."

"Then shoot him all the more," cried the poet impatiently; "he was
bribed to upset his master. Then put the lady in the middle, and we will
break the line up there--with a rush."

And, wading in wild grass and flowers, he advanced fearlessly on the
four carbines; but finding that no one followed except young Harrogate,
he turned, brandishing his cutlass to wave the others on. He beheld
the courier still standing slightly astride in the centre of the grassy
ring, his hands in his pockets; and his lean, ironical Italian face
seemed to grow longer and longer in the evening light.

"You thought, Muscari, I was the failure among our schoolfellows," he
said, "and you thought you were the success. But I have succeeded more
than you and fill a bigger place in history. I have been acting epics
while you have been writing them."

"Come on, I tell you!" thundered Muscari from above. "Will you stand
there talking nonsense about yourself with a woman to save and three
strong men to help you? What do you call yourself?"

"I call myself Montano," cried the strange courier in a voice equally
loud and full. "I am the King of Thieves, and I welcome you all to my
summer palace."

And even as he spoke five more silent men with weapons ready came out of
the bushes, and looked towards him for their orders. One of them held a
large paper in his hand.

"This pretty little nest where we are all picnicking," went on the
courier-brigand, with the same easy yet sinister smile, "is, together
with some caves underneath it, known by the name of the Paradise of
Thieves. It is my principal stronghold on these hills; for (as you have
doubtless noticed) the eyrie is invisible both from the road above and
from the valley below. It is something better than impregnable; it is
unnoticeable. Here I mostly live, and here I shall certainly die, if
the gendarmes ever track me here. I am not the kind of criminal that
'reserves his defence,' but the better kind that reserves his last
bullet."

All were staring at him thunderstruck and still, except Father Brown,
who heaved a huge sigh as of relief and fingered t