“Aye! aye!” came in cheerful accents from the defiant little group.

“Out with you fellow, we’ve no time to waste in bandying words with ye ...” said Walterton, with the tone of one accustomed to see the churl ever cringe before the lord, “and let one of thy myrmidons touch a thing in this room if he dare!”

The young cavalier was standing somewhat in advance of his friends, having stepped forward in order to emphasize the peremptoriness of his words.  The women were still in the background well protected by a phalanx of resolute defenders who, encouraged by the captain’s silence and Walterton’s haughty attitude, were prepared to force the patrol of police to beat a hasty retreat.

Endicott and his wife had seemed to think it prudent to keep well out of sight:  the former having yielded to Gunning’s advance had discreetly retired amongst the petticoats.

No one, least of all Walterton, who remained the acknowledged leader of the little party of gamesters, had any idea of the numerical strength of the patrol whose interference with gentlemanly pastimes was unwarrantable and passing insolent.  In the gloom on the landing beyond, a knot of men could only be vaguely discerned.  Captain Gunning and his lieutenant, Bradden, had alone advanced into the room.

But now apparently Gunning gave some sign, which Bradden then interpreted to the men outside.  The sign itself must have been very slight for none of the cavaliers perceived it—­certainly no actual word of command had been spoken, but the next moment—­within thirty seconds of Walterton’s defiant speech, the room itself, the doorway and apparently the landing and staircase too, were filled with men, each one attired in scarlet and yellow, all wearing leather doublets and steel caps, and all armed with musketoons which they were even now pointing straight at the serried ranks of the surprised and wholly unprepared gamesters.

“I would fain not give an order to fire,” said Captain Gunning curtly, “and if you, gentlemen, will follow me quietly, there need be no bloodshed.”

It may be somewhat unromantic but it is certainly prudent, to listen at times to the dictates of common sense, and one of wisdom’s most cogent axioms is undoubtedly that it is useless to stand up before a volley of musketry at a range of less than twelve feet, unless a heroic death is in contemplation.

It was certainly very humiliating to be ordered about by a close-cropped Puritan, who spoke in nasal tones, and whose father probably had mended boots or killed pigs in his day, but the persuasion of twenty-four musketoons, whose muzzles pointed collectively in one direction, was bound—­in the name of common sense—­to prevail ultimately.