"By Jove!" he muttered; "if I could only make friends with the people of this place, and then marry that girl, I think I should be as happy as a king. If I only dared, I would open the window. My! what a beautiful creature! I'll do it, anyhow."
Seizing the sash, he thrust it aside, and then sprang into the room with a single bound.
Foolish man! That was the very worst thing he could have done, and if he had only stopped to think he would never have done it.
As Clancy landed upon the floor the girl sprang from the divan and uttered a wild scream of terror.
"Keep still, my girl; I'm not going to harm you," Clancy hastened to exclaim.
But that one scream did the business.
The next instant a curtain was thrown aside and half a dozen men rushed in.
Before Doc Clancy could make a move, he was seized and thrown upon his back on the floor.
A silken cord was wound tightly about his arms and legs, and then in a twinkling of an eye he was whisked from the room.
His captors did not stop until they had descended a flight of stone steps, and Doc Clancy, who was now thoroughly frightened, felt a draught of chilly air blowing upon him.