This prisoner in the van was certainly the magnate of Egypt.  Vaniman found that a towel was bound tightly across the bearded mouth; the young man even ran his hand over the bald pate, now divested of its toupee.

There was no gold in the van.  Vaniman made sure of that after he had satisfied himself as to the identity of Britt.

While the young man was endeavoring to steady his whirling thoughts, striving to plan some course of action by which he could turn the situation to his personal benefit, his attention became taken up in another quarter.  Through the trap he heard the voice of the short man.  “Quick!  Off the road.  Nobody’s in sight!”

The van lurched and the front of it dipped with a violence that drove Vaniman and Britt against the end.  Up came the front and the rear sagged.  Then the van went bumping and swaying over uneven ground.  The claw-clash of the branches of trees against the sides informed Vaniman that the men had driven into the woods.

When the vehicle halted, the young man crawled forward and huddled down into as compact a ball as he could make of himself.

He heard the three men dismounting.  “I’ll tell the world that this is a handy night for us, whatever it is that’s going on in this burg!” It was the voice of that ever-ready spokesman, the short man.  “There would have been a head at every window if we had been obliged to go teaming around all by ourselves, in the night.  But they wouldn’t have noticed a couple of giraffes and a hippopotamus in that procession.”

“I couldn’t see that they even paid any attention to those women squalling upstairs when we did the job,” was the tall man’s opinion.  “Handy night, say you?  Why, that man we braced up to and asked where was Britt’s boarding house, he seemed to have so much of his own business on his mind that he wasn’t wondering a mite what our business with Britt might be.”

“Get busy!” said the other convict.  “That business is only just beginning.”

There was a stir of feet.

“Hold on!” It was the voice of Wagg, mumbling cautiously.  “Tie your handkerchiefs over your faces like I’m doing.”

“Right!” the short man agreed.  “Always leave ’em guessing when you say good-by!”

A few moments later Wagg lifted the flap; Vaniman saw him outlined against the fog.  The convicts reached in and pulled Britt out, and the flap was dropped.

“Look out!” the short man warned.  “Loosen that towel only a little and hold your clutch on his gullet, bo!  We’re not any too far from that road, and we’ll understand the good news if he’ll only whisper it.”

After a few moments he went on.  “Man, we’ve got you—­got you foul!  You know where that gold coin is.  Shut up!  No argument.  You tell us where it is.  Then you won’t get hurt.  If you don’t tell us, you will get hurt.  Get busy with your mouth!”

In spite of his abhorrence at this method of extorting the truth, Vaniman was conscious of a feeling of comradeship with the three rapscallions at that moment.  They were merely seeking loot.  He was seeking the re-establishment of his honor and his love.  He waited in the tense silence, straining every nerve to hear.  No sound came to him.  He wondered whether Britt, cowed, was whispering the information.