In four or five minutes he was rudely stopped. He heard a knock upon a door, a peculiar and obviously signal knock. There was a sound of a window opening, a low whistle, and he was pushed forward up a few steps and into a house, the door of which was immediately closed behind him.
He was hustled along an evil-smelling passage, down a flight of uneven stone stairs and into a room, a room much warmer than the cold passages which he had traversed, a room in which there were several people, and where a fire was burning.
The cruel grip which had held him like a vice in its strength and ingenuity was a little relaxed.
He was pushed down upon a chair. The air of the room was stifling, his body was wet with perspiration, owing to the sudden transition from cold to heat, the restricted breathing, and the extreme rapidity of his progress.
A hand rested on his cheek for a moment and then plucked the filthy handkerchief from his mouth.
The duke took a deep breath. Foul as the air was in this place it seemed at this moment balmy as those breezes laden with cassia and nard which blow through the Gardens of the Hesperides.
Then a voice spoke: "You will be all right, guv'nor. Sorry to 'ave 'ad to treat you a bit rough like, but, 'pon my sivvey, we wasn't goin' to lose a bit-of-orl-right like this. Just for precaution's sake, as you might sye, we'll——"
The sentence was not concluded, but the duke felt his legs were being tied to the legs of the chair. His arms were suddenly caught up and pressed behind him. He was perfectly helpless.
Then the bandage was removed from his eyes.
He found himself in a place which, in his experience, was utterly unlike anything that he had seen before, or even imagined. As a matter of fact, he was sitting trussed upon a windsor chair in an underground thieves' cellar-kitchen.