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  But he would be exceedingly grateful if he would hand over the money immediately to the messenger he had sent with this letter.

  “It is impossible for me to wait,” he wrote.

  “I must apologise for asking for this without prior notice, but it is a matter of life or death.

  I want you to understand that is why I am asking you to let me have the money immediately.”

  He signed a cheque for the full amount.

  Then he placed it in an envelope and addressed it to the Manager of the Bank.

  By the time he had finished he went out into the yard and found, as he had expected, that the four horses were harnessed and ready.

  James, the footman, who was wearing his hat and coat, was waiting under cover.

  When Sir John gave the order, he jumped quickly into the chaise beside the driver and they drove off down the drive.

  Sir John was quite certain that anyone seeing them pass quickly would think that the man in the tall hat was himself leaving to obtain the money from the Bank in the town.

  He went back into the house and found that the men all had a weapon with them.

  They had loaded them while he was absent.

  “If they are watching the house and I am quite sure they are,” Sir John told them, “we have to be very clever and move out, not in a large body, but singly and meet somewhere they would not be watching before we attempt to rescue her Ladyship from inside the cave which as you know is high up from ground level and so higher than the wood.”

  They nodded at this and then Sir John said,

  “What we have to do is to walk North away from the house so that we will be out of sight and no one will suspect this is what we are doing.”

  He paused before he added,

  “Then we must double back until we are behind the cave and when we attack it we hope that those who have taken her Ladyship there will be watching the house.”

  Everyone was listening intently as he continued,

  “Of course they will be watching for the return of the chaise from the Bank and they think that I will take into the house.”

  He spoke slowly and realised that every man knew exactly what he required.

  “If I remember it rightly,” he went on, “there is a small copse in the field which is a little way behind the cave. We will meet there, but it is essential that you must leave one by one as if you were going to work.”

  They nodded again to show that they understood.

  Then Sir John added,

  “You must hide the weapons that you have in your hands either with a spade or a fork. Now go separately so that there is no question of your looking for them or that you have any intention of fighting them.”

  The men, having been in the Services, understood what he required.

  Then the Head Gardener piped up,

  “We’ll do exactly what you wants, Sir John, and we ’opes you won’t be long in meetin’ us.”

  “I hope so too,” Sir John said. “But as you know I have to hide even better than you do so that no one will suspect that it is me who is finding my way to the cave.”

  He walked away as he finished speaking.

  They knew that they must obey orders and started out in single file.

  Sir John, however, walked out onto the terrace as if he was looking down at the wood beneath him.

  And then he realised that he must keep out of sight until the men returned from the Bank with the money he had asked for.

  He went back and into the drawing room and saw that the book Melita had been reading was lying on the sofa.

  Quite suddenly he realised that if she did not return the house would never be the same as it had been.

  Ever since she had entered it, she had seemed to bring sunshine and at night starlight into every room she went into.

  He knew at that moment that he could not lose her.

  He would fight with every breath in his body to save her from suffering in any way.

  Then he told Bates that he was leaving and slipped out of the house by the back door.

  By going through the kitchen garden he knew that he was protected from any sightseer by the high walls that surrounded it.

  When he let himself out at the back, he was among the young trees which had been planted behind the flower garden.

  He moved swiftly through them, keeping as much out of sight as it was possible to do.

  Actually there was no one about as far as he could see and he felt at once that things were safer than he had expected them to be.

  The difficulty was to reach the cave without being seen as there were open fields surrounding the hill where the cave was situated.

  Fortunately all the fences were high and thick with leaves at this time of the year.

  By bending forward in some places and in others almost crawling, he gradually reached the field which lay at the bottom of the ground where the cave stood.

  Sir John peered through the leaves of the hedge.

  He could see the sunshine touching the top of the cave and the yellow of the sunflowers among the blossom of the bushes and those at the back of the cave were in full bloom.

  He thought that men could hide behind them very effectively so that no one watching from the top by the cave would notice that they were almost level with him.

  At last, and it seemed to take a very long time, he reached the copse in the field where his men were by now gathered.

  There were already four of them waiting for him and the fifth man arrived only a few minutes after he had sat down beside them.

  “Have you seen anyone?” Sir John asked them in a whisper.

  “Yes,” they replied. “Two men came out just now and looked round as if they were searching for someone and then they went in again.”

  “I expect they are making sure we are not here,” Sir John said. “Now what we have to do is to approach from both sides, keeping within the bushes and not appearing until we can hold them up with our guns.”

  “I’d like to kill ’em all,” one groom growled.

  “I am sure you would,” Sir John replied. “At the same time, if it comes to fighting with guns, we can die as easily as them. If we can do it peacefully, that, I am sure, is the best way.”

  He knew as he spoke that the men did not agree with him.

  A farmer muttered,

  “I’d kill the whole damned lot of ’em if I got a chance.”

  “It means too many days in Court when I want you in the fields,” Sir John told him.

  Some of the men laughed and put their hands over their mouths in case anyone heard them.

  By the time all this had happened it was getting on for three o’clock.

  Sir John was sure that it would not be long before the footmen returned from the Bank.

  Five minutes later he saw the chaise moving up the drive and he knew that the footman would be taking the money into the house to Bates.

  He was just about to tell his men what he had seen when he saw a man coming out of the cave and shout to another man who was just below him.

  “’E be back,” the man said. “I see ’im comin’ up the drive with the money.”

  He spoke with a London accent and looked, as Sir John thought after a brief glance, a Cockney.

  In a way he was glad that the robbers and thieves were English and he would not be accused, if there was to be any trouble, of fighting or injuring a man from another country.

  The man who had shouted went back into the cave and the other man followed him. They were clearly feeling that they had already won the battle.

  Sir John thought that this was now the moment.

  He whispered to his men what he wanted them to do.

  Then bending low so that it was impossible to be seen, he crept amongst the bushes until he was directly below the cave.

  The men had followed him and they moved nearer and higher until John stood upright and they knew that this was the moment to follow him into the cave.

 
Even as he did so a man appeared unexpectedly.

  He saw Sir John and ran back into the cave.

  It was then that Sir John moved faster than he had ever done in his whole life.

  He followed the man, bending low as he entered the cave.

  He knew that once inside he would be able to stand upright.

  It was then he saw, as he had half-expected, Melita seated in a chair and bound up with ropes attached to the wall behind her.

  The man who he had just seen now pointed his gun at her and grunted to Sir John,

  “Come one foot nearer and I’ll shoot ’er!”

  It was then that Sir John without replying pointed his revolver at the man’s arm and pulled the trigger.

  The resounding shot echoed and re-echoed round the cave.

  The man fell backwards onto the ground.

  His gun clattered down on the floor without having been fired.

  Sir John then sprang forward.

  His men following him expected to find some other kidnappers inside.

  But there was only the man who had been guarding Melita, who was now groaning over his injured arm as he lay on the ground.

  Sir John rushed forward.

  Reaching Melita he pulled the rope from round her body and lifted her off the chair.

  “You have come,” she whispered. “I was praying you would come and – now you are here.”

  He could hardly hear her voice, but he could see the tears in her eyes.

  “It’s all right, darling,” Sir John said. “No one will hurt you now.”

  Three of his men were standing behind him with pointed guns.

  The others stood at the door in case the noise of the shot should bring in the other kidnappers.

  But as Sir John had hoped, they were all on the other side of the hill from the cave.

  Or else they were in the wood waiting to snatch up the ten thousand pounds if it was left, as their Chief had assured them it would be, on the bridge over the stream.

  He then ordered his men to round up the rest of the kidnappers, disarm them and lock them up in a barn on one of the farms and guard them until the Police came to take them away to the nearest prison.

  Then, picking up Melita carefully in his arms and totally ignoring the groaning man at his feet, Sir John walked across the cave.

  Before he left the house he had instructed the two grooms he had not picked to go with him to bring a closed carriage to the road at the back of the cave.

  He told them that they must not be seen, but they were to be there to take them back when he had rescued Melita.

  It had in fact been easier than he had hoped simply because the rest of the men had been away from the cave making quite sure that there was no one leaving the house to attack them.

  Slowly, with his men walking as a protection on either side of him and Melita, he carried her through the trees and bushes until they came to an end.

  Ahead they could see the carriage waiting for them.

  Very gently Sir John put Melita inside the carriage while the men climbed on the front and the back before the horses moved off.

  It was then Melita, with her head on his shoulder, spoke for the first time since they had left the cave,

  “You came, you came – to me,” she whispered. “I prayed and prayed that you would find me. How could you – be so wonderful, John.”

  She spoke very jerkily and there were tears on her cheeks.

  “You might have known that I would save you,” Sir John replied.

  “I thought you would – but I was terrified that they might shoot you. They were all – carrying guns,”

  She had her head on his shoulder.

  Because she was still crying, he could hardly hear what she was saying.

  “It’s all right, my darling one, my sweet,” Sir John murmured. “Do you really think that I would lose you? I knew if you went I would lose the most precious thing I have ever possessed and that is you.”

  Because she was so surprised at the way he spoke and what he was saying, Melita stopped crying and looked up at him questioningly.

  “Did you really mind me being taken away from you?” she asked.

  “If you had gone, I would never have been happy again,” Sir John replied. “I love you and I knew I could not lose you.”

  “Are you really – saying it to me?” she whispered.

  “I am saying it with all my heart and soul,” Sir John answered.

  Melita made a little sound and put her head against his chest.

  “I have loved you – for a long time,” she said, “but I did not think – you loved me.”

  “I have always loved you,” Sir John replied. “How could I do anything else when you are so beautiful and so perfect and everything that any man could ever want in a woman?”

  The words seemed to fall from his mouth.

  Then he pulled her closer and his lips were on hers.

  It was a long kiss.

  The kiss of a man who had spent such a long time looking for the love he wanted and now he had found it he was afraid that it was not real.

  But to Melita it was the answer to everything she had ever felt or desired.

  “I love you, I love you,” she whispered.

  “And I adore you, Melita. You are exactly what I have been looking for all my life but thought I would never find. Oh, darling, how can you be so marvellous? I might have lost you.”

  Then he was kissing her again.

  She knew that this was the love that she had always wanted to find, but thought that it was only a part of one’s imagination.

  ‘I love you, I love you,’ she wanted to say, but his kisses told her what he was feeling without words.

  They reached the house and Bates was waiting on the doorstep.

  “Thank God you’re back, Sir John,” he said. “My wife’s been praying ever since you left that no harm would come to her Ladyship.”

  “She is safe,” Sir John assured him, “but we both had a very unpleasant experience and I think what we need is a glass of champagne.”

  Bates smiled.

  “I’ve got it ready for you, Sir John,” he replied. “It’s on ice in the drawing room.”

  Sir John smiled at him.

  Still carrying Melita in his arms he went into the drawing room.

  He set her down on the sofa.

  Having poured out a glass of champagne for both of them, Bates left the room.

  It was then that Sir John said, picking up his glass,

  “I drink to the most beautiful and the most adorable woman in the world. How soon will you marry me?”

  Melita, having wiped away her tears, looked at him and answered,

  “Can we really be married – now?”

  “We are going to be married at once. If you think I am going to lose you again, you are very much mistaken.”

  “But if we are married here,” she said, “everyone will think it strange when we were supposed to have been married in Paris.”

  “Leave that to me, my darling Melita. All you have to do is to go upstairs and rest, which I know you want to do, while I send someone to fetch the Vicar.”

  “But what about the men who captured me?” she asked. “And did Bracken get home safely?”

  “I wondered how soon you would ask me that,” Sir John smiled. “Yes, he is quite safe, but it was him who told us first that something sinister had happened to you. Then I received a letter from them telling me that they wanted ten thousand pounds, which I see arrived here some time ago.”

  “Ten thousand pounds!” Melita exclaimed. “Am I really worth all that?”

  “You are worth that and everything else I possess,” Sir John said. “As I have just told you, we are going to get married as quickly as I can possibly arrange it.”

  He kissed her again.

  Then he went from the room telling Bates, who was waiting in the hall, to send a carriage for the Vicar.

  If Bates was surprised at the Vicar being
wanted at that particular moment, he was far too well-trained to say anything.

  He merely hurried to the stables to tell the Head Groom that the Vicar was wanted immediately.

  He came back to say that the carriage had already gone to the Vicarage to pick up the Vicar.

  “I will go up to my room,” Melita said. “I don’t want anyone to see me looking – so dishevelled.”

  “You look so beautiful,” Sir John told her at once. “Much more beautiful than any woman could ever be.”

  He kissed her again before she could reply.

  Then, as she slipped away, he thought quickly what he would say to the Vicar.

  When the Vicar did arrive, he was hoping to make the acquaintance of Sir John’s wife, who he had been told was an outstanding beauty.

  When he went into the drawing room, only Sir John was there.

  “I have been meaning to see you, Vicar,” Sir John began, shaking him by the hand, “but I have been so busy since I came back that you must forgive me not seeing you yesterday as I meant to do.”

  “I am not surprised you are so busy, Sir John,” the Vicar replied, “seeing as you have been in London for so long.”

  “Now I want you to do one thing for me,” Sir John said, “and that is to arrange a special Marriage Service for me and my wife.”

  “I understood from the newspapers that you were married in Paris,” the Vicar answered with a puzzled look on his face.

  “So we were,” Sir John affirmed. “But it was done in a hurry and the Service was in French. Therefore my wife feels, as I do, that we need an English Wedding just to ourselves to complete our happiness.”

  “I can understand you feeling like that,” the Vicar said, “and, of course, I am at your disposal.”

  “We want no one to know that this is happening,” Sir John said, “so will you come to my Private Chapel at ten o’clock.”

  He paused before he added,

  “If we would need a witness maybe, as no one must know of this, your wife would oblige. I see no reason why anyone else should know what is happening.”

  “It is an unusual request,” the Vicar replied. “But I do understand you feeling that the Ceremony in France was somewhat disappointing. We were, of course, hoping for a grand Wedding with fireworks at the end and everyone in the village being allowed to be present.”