In half an hour there was a stir, and a servant, coming out, shouted: 

“His Grace the Duke of Somerset’s chair.”

This was at once brought up to the door.  Next came a call for the chair of Mr. Henry Boyle, who was followed by Harcourt, the attorney general, then the chair of My Lord Godolphin was summoned.

Desmond and three or four others, who had gathered to see the members of the council come out, had been ordered off by the sentries as soon as the first chair was called, but remained near enough to hear the names.  To his satisfaction, Godolphin’s chair was carried off in the direction they had anticipated, and he at once ran on and joined his companions.

Presently, the lights carried by the two link men were seen approaching, and, as the chair came abreast of him, he shouted: 

“Now!”

Almost simultaneously, the four heavy cudgels alighted on the heads of the four men, levelling them senseless to the ground; and O’Neil and Desmond sprang to the chair, and wrenched the door open, while O’Sullivan and Mike bound the four men, and thrust the gags into their mouths.  Lord Godolphin had been thrown from his seat by the sudden fall of his bearers, and was seized and bound before he was conscious of what had happened.  Then his captors assisted the others in carrying the fallen men to some distance from the path.

A couple of minutes sufficed to cover the gilding and armorial bearings upon the chair.  The torches were still burning on the ground.  One of these was stamped out.  Desmond took the other.  Mike and O’Sullivan went between the poles, and adjusted the leathern straps over their shoulders, and started.

Emerging from the park at Charing Cross, past the old church of Saint.  Martin’s in the Fields, and keeping round the walls to Holborn Bars, they made their way to their lodging, and Godolphin was carried into their room, which was on the ground floor.  Mike and O’Neil then took the chair away, and left it in a narrow alley, where it was not likely to attract attention until the morning.

Not until they returned was anything said to their prisoner.  It had been agreed that O’Neil, as the senior, was to be spokesman of the party.

“Lord Godolphin,” he said, “I regret that circumstances have obliged us to use force towards you, but our necessities compel us to leave the country at once, and it has appeared to us that in no way could we get away so expeditiously as with the aid of your lordship.  We will now set you free.  I must tell you, beforehand, that if you attempt to raise your voice and give the alarm, we shall be constrained to blow out your brains.”

Mike now released him from the bonds, and removed the gag from his mouth, but for a time the minister was incapable of speech, being choked by anger at the treatment he had met with.

“You will repent this outrage,” he burst out, at last.