"You need not threaten, sir," Lord Godolphin said calmly. "I will give you the order, to the person to whom such communications are addressed, and it shall be couched in the same words as usual."
Desmond placed a sheet of paper, pen, and ink before him. He, dating it from the Treasury, wrote:
To John Dawkins, Mariner, High Street, Rye. Urgent.
On the receipt of this, you will at once convey the bearer, and three persons with him, and land them in some convenient spot in France.
He then added his signature.
"Now, gentlemen, what next?" he said, looking up.
O'Neil looked at his companions, and then they spoke for a moment together.
"We are about to start at once, my lord," he said, "and it was our intention to have left you bound and gagged, until the morning, when the woman of the house would have assuredly found you and released you. But, as you have acceded to our request at once, we will, if you give us your word of honour that you will raise no alarm, and say no word of this business until eight o'clock tomorrow morning, let you depart at once."
"Thank you for your courtesy, gentlemen, and for your confidence in my honour. I am, indeed, anxious to return home at once. If I do not do so, there will be a hue and cry for me, and by the time I return in the morning all London will know that I am missing. I naturally should not wish this adventure to become a matter of common talk: in the first place, because the position in which you have placed me can scarcely be called a pleasant one; and secondly, because the success of your enterprise might lead others to make similar attempts on my person, or that of my colleagues. Even now, I fear that my servants, when sufficiently recovered, will go to my house and give the alarm."
"I do not think that that is likely to be the case, my lord," O'Neil said, "as we took the precaution of gagging and binding them, and laid them down some distance from the roadside. If, on your return home, you find they have not arrived, you have but to send a couple of your servants out to release them. You can give them strict orders that no word is to be said of the affair, and make them to understand you were attacked in error, and that the ruffians who took part in the outrage at once released you, upon discovering your identity."