Part 22 (2/2)

”The lady's beauty has changed all that,” said the Frenchman. ”I am going to marry her.”

”No, no: it's me; it's me,” said the Italian.

”Have done with this foolish talk!” roared the Scotchman, banging the table. ”If either of you marries her, the poor young thing will be a widow in a fortnight. I know Septimus Rainer; he'll shoot such a son-in-law at sight!”

”Shoot me! Shoot me! This American mushroom shoot a Monteleone for marrying his daughter!” cried the Italian. ”Why, the Monteleones were Crusaders! He'll be proud of the alliance!”

”Very proud--very proud he'll be will Septimus Rainer--when he's shot ye,” jeered the Scotchman.

A movement overhead drew Tinker's attention; he looked up, to see Dorothy leaning out of the window above. He uttered the short click which served him as a signal when he played the part of chief conspirator. She looked straight down at him, but did not move or answer, and he knew that there was someone, an enemy, in the room with her. The kidnappers still disputed vehemently; and he stole up to the wall, and began to climb the vine which covered the side of the house.

He disturbed a number of roosting small birds; but Dorothy's suitors were putting forward their pretensions to her hand with a clamour which drowned the flutter of wings. He climbed up and up, and Dorothy never stirred; and at last he looked under her arm into the room. Elsie, with her elbows on the table, was staring miserably at the grim, forbidding face of an elderly woman who sat on a chair backed up against the door.

Tinker looked at the woman and could scarcely believe his eyes, then he laughed gently, slipped over the window-sill, and said cheerfully, ”Hullo, Selina, how are you?”

The grim woman started up with a little cry, stared at him, ran across the room, and began to hug him furiously, crying, ”Oh, Master Tinker!

Master Tinker! What a turn you did give me!”

”Drop it, Selina! Drop it!” said Tinker, struggling out of her embrace. ”You know how I hate being s...o...b..red over!”

Then he dodged Dorothy and Elsie, who advanced upon him with one accord and one purpose of kissing him, and cried, ”No, no! This is no time for foolery!”

”But I don't understand,” said Dorothy.

”Oh! Selina's my old nurse. What are you doing here, Selina? I never expected you to turn kidnapper at your age!”

”Nothing of the kind, Master Tinker! I'm paid to help save these poor lambs from them Popish Jesuits, and I'm going to do it!”

”Let's hear about this,” said Tinker, sitting down on the table.

”It's my poor husband's cousin, Mr. Alexander McNeill. He engaged me to come here to act as maid to a young lady he was helping get away from those Jesuits who were trying to force her into a convent to get her money,” said Selina.

”You've been humbugged, then. What you are doing is helping to kidnap my adopted sister Elsie, and Miss Dorothy Rainer, the daughter of an American millionaire,” said Tinker joyfully.

Dorothy started and flushed. ”How did you learn that?” she said quickly.

”Your father's come from America, and he and my father are looking for you, though where they are there's no saying. I left them at Ventimiglia arrested as spies,” said Tinker.

”Arrested as spies?” cried Dorothy.

But Selina, whose face had undergone a slow but violent change, broke in, ”So Alexander's humbugged me, has he? He's brought me all the way from Paris here by a lie about Jesuits having tried to bury this young lady in one of their nasty convents, to do his dirty kidnapping work, has he? I'll kidnap him! I'll teach him to play these tricks on me!”

”Do!” said Tinker with warm approval. ”You let him have it! Think that you're pitching into me like you used to! Come along, all of you!

Selina's simply tremendous when her back's up!”

Selina opened the door, and went down the stairs with all the outraged majesty of a Boadicea. The three of them followed her quietly, and at the bottom Tinker bade Dorothy and Elsie unbar the door of the house and himself kept close behind Selina. She opened the door of the room; and at the sight of her the sustained shriek in which the Italian and the Frenchman were conversing died suddenly down, and the three kidnappers stared at her.

”You nasty, body-s.n.a.t.c.hing sc.u.m!” said Selina, glowering at them.

”Eh! What? You're daft, woman! What's the matter?” said McNeill.

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