At the same time, it was evident that considerable difficulty would be experienced in discovering the men engaged in such traffic, and in making an arrangement with them, and it was all-important that no time should be lost, for there was no saying when the trial might come on.

“If we could but get hold of Godolphin,” Desmond said, next morning, “we might get an order, from him, to embark in one of the boats that carry his agents.”

The others laughed.

“Yes; and if you could get hold of Anne, you might persuade her to sign an order for the release of our comrades.”

Desmond did not answer, but sat thinking for a few minutes.

“It is not so impossible as you seem to imagine,” he said, at last.  “Doubtless, like everyone else, he goes in a sedan chair to the meeting of the council, and returns in the same manner.  There are two ways in which we could manage the matter.  Of course, he has his own chair, with his chair men in livery.  We might either make these men drunk and assume their dress, or attack them suddenly on the way; then we should, of course, gag and bind them, and carry him here, or to some other place that we might decide upon, and force him to give us an order for the boatmen to take us across the channel, at once.  Of course, we should have horses in readiness, and ride for the coast.  We should have a twelve hours’ start, for it would be that time before our landlady came in as usual, with our breakfast, when Godolphin would, of course, be released.”

The two officers looked at each other, astounded at the audacity of the scheme that Desmond had quietly propounded.  O’Sullivan was the first to speak.

“Are you really in earnest, Kennedy?”

“Quite in earnest.  I do not see why it should not be done.”

“Well, you are certainly the coolest hand I ever came across,” O’Neil said.  “You are proposing to seize the first minister in England, as if it were merely an affair of carrying off a pretty girl quite willing to be captured.  The idea seems monstrous, and yet, as you put it, I do not see why it might not succeed.”

“I hardly think that it could fail,” Desmond said quietly.  “De Tulle managed to carry off the Baron de Pointdexter’s daughter from the court of Versailles, and did so without any hitch or difficulty.  Surely three Irishmen could arrange an affair of this sort as well as a French vicomte.”

“If it is to be done,” O’Sullivan said, “I think the second plan is best.  You might fail in making the chair men drunk, or at any rate sufficiently drunk to allow them to be despoiled of their clothes; whereas you could have no difficulty in silencing a couple of chair men by a sudden attack—­a sharp rap on the head with these bludgeons ought to settle that affair.”

“Quite so,” Desmond agreed; “and while Mike and one of us were so employed, the other two might throw open the doors of the chair, and gag Godolphin before he was conscious of what was happening.”