The other said—­

‘All right—­provided no clubbing.’

‘No clubbing it is, then—­provided he keeps still.’

They approached me; just then there was a sound outside; a sound of voices and trampling hoofs; the robbers held their breath and listened; the sounds came slowly nearer and nearer; then came a shout—­

‘Hello, the house!  Show a light, we want water.’

‘The captain’s voice, by G—!’ said the stage-whispering ruffian, and both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their bull’s-eye as they ran.

The strangers shouted several times more, then rode by—­there seemed to be a dozen of the horses—­and I heard nothing more.

I struggled, but could not free myself from my bonds.  I tried to speak, but the gag was effective; I could not make a sound.  I listened for my wife’s voice and my child’s—­listened long and intently, but no sound came from the other end of the room where their bed was.  This silence became more and more awful, more and more ominous, every moment.  Could you have endured an hour of it, do you think?  Pity me, then, who had to endure three.  Three hours—? it was three ages!  Whenever the clock struck, it seemed as if years had gone by since I had heard it last.  All this time I was struggling in my bonds; and at last, about dawn, I got myself free, and rose up and stretched my stiff limbs.  I was able to distinguish details pretty well.  The floor was littered with things thrown there by the robbers during their search for my savings.  The first object that caught my particular attention was a document of mine which I had seen the rougher of the two ruffians glance at and then cast away.  It had blood on it!  I staggered to the other end of the room.  Oh, poor unoffending, helpless ones, there they lay, their troubles ended, mine begun!

Did I appeal to the law—­I?  Does it quench the pauper’s thirst if the King drink for him?  Oh, no, no, no—­I wanted no impertinent interference of the law.  Laws and the gallows could not pay the debt that was owing to me!  Let the laws leave the matter in my hands, and have no fears:  I would find the debtor and collect the debt.  How accomplish this, do you say?  How accomplish it, and feel so sure about it, when I had neither seen the robbers’ faces, nor heard their natural voices, nor had any idea who they might be?  Nevertheless, I was sure—­ quite sure, quite confident.  I had a clue—­a clue which you would not have valued—­a clue which would not have greatly helped even a detective, since he would lack the secret of how to apply it.  I shall come to that, presently—­you shall see.  Let us go on, now, taking things in their due order.  There was one circumstance which gave me a slant in a definite direction to begin with:  Those two robbers were manifestly soldiers in tramp disguise; and not new to military service, but old in it—­regulars, perhaps; they did not acquire