made a ring of light round them. That was why they did not see a dark figure that came quietly creeping across the sand towards them. It was quite close to them before Edred looked up.
"Oh!" he gasped, and Dickie, looking up, whispered, "It's all up—run. Never mind me. I shall get away all right."
"No," said Edred, and then with a joyous leap of the heart perceived that the dark figure was Elfrida in her father's ulster.
("I hadn't time to put on my stockings," she explained later. "You'd have known me a mile off by my white legs if I hadn't covered them up with this.")
"Elfrida!" said both boys at once.
"Well, you didn't think I was going to be out of it," she said. "I've been behind you all the way, Edred. Don't tell me anything. I won't ask any questions, only come along out of it. Lean on me."
They got him up to the passage, one on each side, and by that time Dickie could use his legs and his crutch. They got home and roused Lord Arden, and told him Dickie was found and all about it, and he roused the house, and he and Beale and half-a-dozen men from the village went up to the cave and found that wicked man and woman in a stupid sleep, and tied their hands and marched them to the town and to the police-station.
When the man was searched the letter was found on him which the man—it was
