As Ben Cooper and Paddy Burk looked down through the crevice in the floor, the two men drew together across the table and began to speak in tones so low that the boys were unable to hear their words.

“Faith, they look like grinning imps, so they do,” commented the Irish lad in a whisper. “Sorra another pair like them did I ever see.”

For some little time did the two continue to speak; then the landlord’s entrance interrupted them.

“Now, gentlemen, I am at your bidding in any way that I can serve you,” said he.

Tobias Hawkins regarded him fixedly for a short time, then he spoke.

“You have not a very large place here.”

“We would have a larger if we could,” said the man, surlily.

“But sometimes small places are very well patronized,” and Hawkins looked about the dingy public room, plainly disbelieving that such was the case here.

“The small places you have in mind,” spoke the lean-faced landlord, “are very much unlike this one, then. We have not enough patronage to hire a hostler, even though we are on a highroad to the city.”

“And the villain told us that he were patronized by all,” whispered Paddy Burk, indignantly. “Faith, I thought it strange that he could get so many into one cobwebby room.”

Ben pressed his arm for silence, for Hawkins was speaking.

“You will pardon the liberty I take,” said the man, “but I would not say that you were very well off.”

“If you did say so,” spoke the landlord, “you would be saying what had never a grain of truth in it.”

Hawkins laughed; never for a moment did his hard eyes leave the face of the other.

“It is seldom, I suppose,” he went on, “that any one comes along who gives you the opportunity to lay something by.”

“They never come,” declared the man, sourly. “For the most part, our patrons are like those two,” and his finger pointed upward. “Nothing but a lodging; not a crumb did they eat between them.”

Hawkins clicked his tongue as though greatly in sympathy with the host.

“You can make no great progress at that rate,” said he.

“A man might stay a beggar all his life if he depended upon such trade,” spoke Sugden.

Surprised at so much sympathy, the man began to make a detailed statement of his complaint, and was still more surprised that he was listened to. When he had done, Hawkins spoke again.

“So it goes,” said he. “Seldom, indeed, do we get justice done us. Now you,” cocking a knowing eye at the landlord, “are a fellow who might make a trifle in other ways beside innkeeping. The wonder is that you have not tried.”

“Stuck here in this place, what can I do? And nothing ever comes this way that has any money attached to it.”

Hawkins shook his head.

“Perhaps you are wrong there,” said he. “I dare venture that many a time there’s been a goodly sum, only awaiting the earning of it, right here in this very room.”

“Them as had it kept it mighty close, then,” said the landlord.

“It may not have been that. Who knows but that it was you who closed your eyes to the chance? Why, for all you can see, there may be as much as you’d earn in a six-month, here to-night, at your hand.”

For a moment there was silence; the lean claw of the landlord stroked his chin and his small, sharp eyes looked into those of Tobias Hawkins.

“Maybe I don’t take your meaning, sir,” said he, “and then, maybe I do. But I will say this for myself: If there is such a sum here to-night that I can be in the way of earning, why, I’m the man for it.”

“Excellent,” approved Hawkins. “I fancied to hear some such answer from you.” He got upon his feet and advanced, switching his boot-leg with his riding whip, to the chimneypiece where the landlord stood. “You look to be a fellow of good courage—one not easily frightened.”

The man’s hand now left his chin, and his glance was swift.

THE MAN SHRANK A LITTLE

“Now,” said he, “I think I begin to understand you. This money, sir, is how much?”

“Thirty English sovereigns.”

The landlord’s eyes glistened in the candle-light.

“It’s a good sum, in the common way of speaking,” he said. “But, perhaps,” shrewdly, “none too good for the work to be done.”

Hawkins bent forward and whispered in his ear; then his finger pointed upward, as though indicating something in the room above. The man shrank a little, and his face seemed to blanch. But his gaze remained fixed steadily upon Hawkins.

“Ah!” said he, with a deep drawn breath, “so it is that!”

“To a man of easy manner and confidence in himself,” said Hawkins, “the thing is no great matter. The like is done often enough, I dare be sworn. So what harm if an odd case or two be added?”

“To such as that,” said the landlord, and the lean hand was again caressing the pointed chin, “there is risk attached.”

“Risk!” Both Hawkins and Sugden jeered at the bare notion of such a thing. “Surely,” continued the former, “you do not fear two——”

But the landlord stopped him.

“Not that, mayhap,” said he, “though the two are more than ordinarily well armed.”

“Ah, well,” sneered Hawkins, “I see you are not the man for the money, after all.”

“Wait!” The landlord held up a hand. “Just one moment, sirs. What,” and his lean face was thrust forward, “would you have me do with the two lads?”

“Deliver them up to us—nothing more.”

“Ah!” The landlord showed vast relief. “That is a matter of some difference. However, my wife is here; if you’ll but give me a moment I’ll speak to her.”

He crossed to the inner door and called his wife by name.

“There is some trifling matter of business toward,” said he. “The gentlemen have money to pay, if we will but set ourselves to earn it.”

The huge woman rolled from the inner room with ponderous slowness.

“Money, did you say?” she inquired, with a sharp greed in her tone. “How much, and what’s to do?”

There was a moment’s silence; then the landlord spoke slowly.

“The sum is thirty sovereigns—golden sovereigns,” his lips smacking the last words as though the taste of the yellow metal was upon his tongue.

“To be sure, golden ones, if they are sovereigns at all, idiot. Who ever heard of sovereigns of any lesser metal?”

Hawkins laughed at this.

“They will be easily earned,” said he. “And we will pay, money down, the instant the thing is over with.”

“What’s to do?” asked the woman once more.

“The gentlemen are friends to the two lads up-stairs,” said the landlord. “And they desire that they shall be given into their charge.”

“If we are to earn the gold so easily as that,” said the woman, eagerly, “there they sleep above. Take them and welcome.”

“Perhaps it will not be quite so easy as you think,” said Sugden. “They, more than likely, will object to accompanying us.”

“What!” cried the woman, with a laugh, “would they so stand in the way of our earning a trifle of money? That would be uncivil of them.”

“Nevertheless,” said Hawkins, “they would object.”

The great red face of the woman became overspread with a grin.

“It may be,” she said, “that they will not care to make their objections very strong. We have a way with us—if you do not forbid it—of persuading those who do not fall in with our desires.”

“Rest assured,” said Hawkins, “that we forbid nothing.”

“Ah!” The huge body of the woman seemed to quiver like a jelly as she chuckled. “I understand you completely, now.” She turned to her husband. “We are forbidden nothing,” she said. “Perhaps we can come upon them much as we——”

“Be still,” said the landlord, in a low, warning tone.

But the woman only chuckled the more.

“Do you think you can make the gentlemen believe we have never undertaken any such little matters as this before?” she said. Then turning to Hawkins, she said, “But now that I understand you, sir, I see that thirty sovereigns would be too little for what you expect. Be a generous gentleman and make it fifty. Times are hard, and a thing of this sort is both dangerous and difficult.”

“Do what I ask, and fifty sovereigns are yours,” said Hawkins.

“Spoken like the open-handed gentleman I took you for,” cried the landlord’s wife, delightedly. “And now,” to her husband, “let us set to to earn this prize. Do you go first, and I’ll follow after with the light.”

“No light,” said the man sulkily, as though he did not relish being ordered about. “A light would waken them.”

He took a number of straps down from a peg behind a door where they hung among some odds and ends of harness. From another place he took a short, heavy, mace-like weapon, at sight of which the woman resumed her chuckling and shaking.

“Ah, that is the gentle persuader,” she said. “Many’s the time I’ve silenced an over-noisy patron with it. Its reasoning is short and sharp, my good sirs, and no one who makes its acquaintance remains unconvinced.”

“Enough of your clacking,” said the landlord, sharply. “Let us set about our work.”

The two lads expected to see them ascend the rickety staircase; but in this they were wrong; for after a few brief sentences to the two guests, the landlord and his wife disappeared through the doorway leading to the inner room.

“Well,” whispered Ben to his companion, “what do you think of this?”

“Sure, and it’s past thinking about it I am,” said Paddy Burk. “Never in the whole of me life did I see or hear such a lot of complete blackguards.”

“They will be here in a moment or two,” said Ben. “How shall we receive them?”

Paddy chuckled.

“Arrah,” said he, “it’ll be no great task to upset the landlord and his fat wife, even though they have a bludgeon with them.”

“Don’t forget,” answered Ben, “that there remain the two down-stairs. If the landlord fails they will not long be idle.”

“Right,” agreed Paddy. “But, sure, we have no call to be afeered of them, either. Let them come, and it’s a warm reception we will try and give them.”

Then they waited in silence for further developments. Ben listened intently for the approach of the pair who were stealing upon them from somewhere in the darkness. The lad had noticed no doors in the room, save the one in the floor, and was puzzled to know just how they were to be approached.

However, both he and Paddy Burk drew on their clothing while they waited; and when this was done, an idea struck Ben.

“We’d better have a light ready, so that we may get a sight of them when they arrive,” said he.

“But that would throw us wide open to a shot from hiding,” protested Paddy.

“We’ll arrange that,” spoke Ben.

With his tinder and flint carefully muffled he soon had a light; then with a burning candle screened behind a coat in such a way that the only illumination was thrown upon the far wall, they renewed their waiting.

It was some time before they caught any sound; and when it came it was apparently from without. The rain was still falling briskly; occasionally the thunder pealed and the sheets of pale lightning flared across the broken panes. Paddy Burk, whose ear also detected the movement outside, whispered:

“Faith, it’s a ducking they are willing to take, to come at us.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Ben in the same low tone. “Here we are on the second floor, and yet the sounds are seemingly just outside the rear windows. I’m going to find out about it.”

He crept softly across the room to the point where he knew the rear windows to be. Then he carefully lifted his head and peered out. In a few moments the lightning flared again, giving him a glimpse of a rain-drenched roof which was almost even with the sill; and stealing across this toward the windows at one of which he stood, was the sharp-faced landlord; through an open door in the roof the huge, red-faced woman struggled clumsily. At sight of these Ben retreated to where Paddy crouched in the shadow.

“They are coming,” he whispered.

In a very few moments they heard a creaking at one of the windows, and then a long pause. It were as though the person without had caught sight of the dimmed light of the screened candle and was carefully examining it. Apparently satisfied, however, the creaking at the window resumed; a gust of damp air showed that a sash had been thrust open. Then a sound of another sort told them that some one had slid into the room.

Softly, slowly and carefully, footsteps advanced in the darkness; and when, in Ben’s judgment, the intruder had reached the center of the floor, his waiting hand drew aside the coat and the candle-light streamed about.

There stood the landlord, arrested in his next step by the disconcerting illumination; in his hand he held the bludgeon with which he had purposed to stun the expectedly sleeping boys; and framed in the open window was the huge, red face of his wife.

Seeing that he was detected, the landlord leaped forward with a snarl; but with a single blow of his pistol butt, Ben Cooper struck him down. At sight of her husband’s fall, the woman burst into a dreadful screech of rage; and in the midst of this the boys heard the sudden rush of feet below them; and the creaking and groaning of the infirm staircase told them that Tobias Hawkins and the man with the yellow smile were leaping upward.