He went on in his maddeningly imperturbable calm.

“No one attacked our guest, but some one, here at this precise point, did attack the driver of this vehicle.”

“For God’s sake,” I cried, “let’s hurry!”

He stepped back slowly to the edge of the road and the drawl in his voice lengthened.

“We do hurry,” he said.  “We hurry to the value of knowing that there was no accident here to the harness, no fright to the horse, no attack on the lady, and no change in the direction which the vehicle afterwards took.  Suppose we had gone on, in a different form of hurry, ignorant of these facts?”

At this point I distinctly heard again the sound of a heavy animal in the wood.  Marquis also heard it and he plunged into the thick bushes.  Almost immediately we were at the spot, and before us some heavy object turned in the leaves.

Marquis whipped an electric-flash out of his pocket.  The body of a man, tied at the hands and heels behind with a hitching-strap, and with a linen carriage lap-cloth wound around his head and knotted, lay there endeavoring to ease the rigor of his position by some movement.

We should now know, in a moment, what desperate thing had happened!

I cut the strap, while Marquis got the lap-cloth unwound from about the man’s head.  It was the driver of the cut-under.  But we got no gain from his discovery.  As soon as his face was clear, he tore out of our grasp and began to run.

He took the old road to the westward of the island, where perhaps he lived.  We were wholly unable to stop him, and we got no reply to our shouted queries except his wild cry for help.  He considered us his assailants from whom, by chance, he had escaped.  It was folly to think of coming up with the man.  He was set desperately for the westward of the island, and he would never stop until he reached it.

We turned back into the road: 

Marquis’ method now changed.  He turned swiftly into the road along the mountain which the cut-under had taken after its capture.

I was at the extreme of a deadly anxiety about Madame Barras.

It seemed to me, now, certain that some gang of criminals having knowledge of the packet of money had waylaid the cut-under.  Proud of my conclusion, I put the inquiry to Sir Henry as we hurried along.  If we weren’t too late!

He stopped suddenly like a man brought up at the point of a bayonet.

“My word!” He jerked the expression out through his tightened jaws.  “Has she got ninety thousand dollars of your money!” And he set out again in his long stride.  I explained briefly as I endeavored to keep his pace.  It was her own money, not mine, but she did in fact have that large sum with her in the cut-under on this night.  I gave him the story of the matter, briefly, for I had no breath to spare over it.  And I asked him what he thought.  Had a gang of thieves attacked the cut-under?