Mr Ravenscar dropped where he stood. Silas Wantage said angrily: “You hadn’t ought to have done that! Hitting of him from behind, and spoiling the prettiest set-to I’ve had in years! That was a foul blow, Mr Kennet, sir, and I don’t hold with such!”
“Don’t stand there chattering, you fool!” said Kennet, kneeling down beside Ravenscar’s inert body. “He’ll come to himself in a minute! Help me to tie him up!”
Silas somewhat sulkily produced two lengths of whipcord, and began to bind one about Ravenscar’s ankles, while Kennet lashed his wrists behind his back, and gagged him with a handkerchief, and a scarf.
“I said he’d peel to advantage, and so he would,” said Silas. “Did you see the right he landed to my jaw? Ah, he knows his way about, he does! Fair rattled my bone-box, I can tell you. And then you goes and lays him out before I’ve had time to do so much as draw his cork!”
“I’m thinking it was your own cork would have been drawn,” retorted Kennet, making his knots fast. “Take you his legs, man, and I’ll take his head. We’ll have him safe hidden in the carriage before he comes round.”
“I don’t deny he’s fast,” admitted Silas, helping to raise Mr Ravenscar from the ground. “But it goes against the grain with me to see as likely a bruiser knocked out by a foul, Mr Kennet, and that’s the truth!”
By the time they had borne Mr Ravenscar’s body to the waiting carriage, both men were somewhat out of breath, and extremely glad to be able to dump their burden on the back seat. Mr Ravenscar was no lightweight.
The carriage had left the Park, and was rumbling over the cobbled streets when Ravenscar stirred, and opened his eyes. He was conscious first of a swimming head that ached and throbbed, and next of his bonds. He made one convulsive attempt to free his hands.
“Ah, now, be easy!” said Kennet in his ear. “There’s no harm will come to you at all if you’re sensible, Mr Ravenscar.”
Mr Ravenscar was dizzy, and bewildered, but he knew that voice. He became still, rigid with anger: anger at Miss Grantham’s perfidy, anger at his own folly in allowing himself to be led into such a trap.