prisoner and lock the door in the wall after him.

He did not have much chance to deliberate about it, for the warder was
heard returning along the gravel path. Spade decided that the best
thing to be done was to spring upon him as he passed and stifle
his cries and overpower him before he could attempt to offer any
resistance. The carrying off of the mad inventor would be easy enough,
inasmuch as he was unconscious, and could not raise a finger to help
himself.

Gaydon came round a clump of bushes and approached the entrance to the
pavilion. As he raised his foot to mount the steps the four sailors
sprang upon him, bore him backwards to the ground, and had gagged him,
securely bound him hand and foot, and bandaged his eyes before he
began to realize what had happened.

Two of the men then kept guard over him, while Captain Spade and the
others entered the house.

As the captain had surmised, Thomas Roch had sunk into such a torpor
that he could have heard nothing of what had been going on outside.
Reclining at full length, with his eyes closed, he might have been
taken for a dead man but for his heavy breathing. There was no need
either to bind or gag him. One man took him by the head and another by
the feet and started off with him to the schooner.

Captain Spade was the last to quit the house after extinguishing the
lamp and closing the door behind him. In this way there was no reason
to suppose that the inmates would be missed before morning.