The Duke of Paddington lay stunned and unconscious beneath the wreck of the first-class carriage.

There had been the period of waiting outside Paddington Station—his own great-grandfather had sold the ground on which it stood to the company—in the black fog of the winter's night.

Then there had come the lengthening roar of the approaching train, the shouts, the horrid crash of impact, the long tearing, ripping, grinding noise—and oblivion.

How long he had been unconscious the duke did not in the least know. He came back to life with that curious growing, widening sensation that a diver has when he is once more springing up through the water towards the surface, air, and light.

Then quite suddenly full consciousness returned—rather, he arrived at full consciousness. Everything was dark, pitch dark. His ears were full of a horrid clamour. A heavy, suffocating weight was pressing upon him.

He lay perfectly still for some moments endeavouring to recollect where he was and what had happened. Finally he remembered and realised that he was actually—he himself—a victim of one of those terrible railway accidents of which he had read so often in the newspapers with a careless word of pity, or perhaps, no emotion at all.

Another train had crashed into the Oxford express in the fog.

The duke moved his right arm, and found he could do so freely, except above his body, where the heavy something which was lying upon him prevented its passage. He strove to dislodge the weight, but was utterly unable to do so. He was, in fact, pinned beneath a mass of woodwork, which, while not pressing on him with more than a little of its weight, nevertheless kept him rigid upon his back without possibility of movement. His left arm he could not move at all. Curiously enough, the sensation of fear was entirely absent.

"I am in a deuce of a tight place," he thought of himself, and thought about himself in a strangely detached fashion as if he was thinking of another person.

"I am in a deuce of a tight place. What is to be done?"

He tried once more to move the crushing roof. He might as well have tried to push down the Bank of England with an umbrella.

Next there came to him a sudden thought, a realisation that at least one thing was in his favour. As far as he knew he was perfectly unhurt. He felt fairly certain that no limbs were broken, and that he had no severe internal injury. He was cut and bruised, doubtless, and still giddy from the blow of the impact, but, save for this, there could be no doubt that he had been most mercifully preserved.

The air was full of confused noises, shouts, the roaring of escaped steam, cries of agony. The duke added his clamour to the rest. His voice was full and strong, and echoed and re-echoed in his ears.

Nothing happened, and now for the first time a sickening feeling of fear came to him and his cries sank into silence.

Almost immediately afterwards he heard a noise much nearer than before, much more distinct and individual. It was a crashing, regular noise, some one was working at the dÉbris.

Once more he shouted, and this time an answering hail came to him.

"Is anyone there?"

"Yes," the duke called out. "I am pinned down here by a heavy mass of timber."

"Are you badly injured?"

"I don't think I'm much hurt, only it is impossible for me to move."

"Cheer up!" came back the voice. "We will soon have you out." And then the crashing, tearing noise went on with renewed vigour.

In a few minutes the duke found the pressure on his chest was much relieved and the noise grew infinitely louder. It was as though he was lying shut up in a box, at the sides of which half a dozen stalwart navvies were kicking. He thought that the drums of his ears were bursting. Then there was a chorus of shouts, a last tremble and heaving of the confining mass, a breath of cold reviving air, and strong hands withdrew him from his prison.

He was carried swiftly to the side of the line and laid down upon a pile of sacking. Immediately he became aware that soft, dexterous hands were feeling him all over, hands which seemed to be definite and separate organisms, so light and purposeful were they.

He realised that a doctor was examining him, and the light of a lantern which some one else was holding showed him that the surmise was correct. A tall young man with a pointed beard, in a long mackintosh, was bending over him.

"You are all right, thank goodness!" said the doctor. "You are not hurt a bit, only you have been stunned, and of course you are suffering from the shock. Now, you just lie here until I come to you again. You must stay still for half an hour. Drink this."

He held a little cup of brandy to the duke's mouth. The fiery liquid sent new life into the young man's veins. Everything became more real and actual to him. Before everything had been a little blurred, as the first image upon the lenses of field-glasses is blurred. Now, the duke seemed to have got the right focus.

"Now, mind, you are not to move at all till I come back," the doctor said. "You have got a warm coat, and I will put some of these sacks over you. You are not hurt, but if you move now until you are rested a little you may get a shock to the nerves, which will remain with you for a long time. Now I must go to attend to some of the poor chaps who want me far more than you do."

"Is it a bad smash?" the duke asked. They were the first words he had spoken.

"One of the worst smashes for many years," answered the doctor over his shoulder as he was hurrying away. "You may thank your Maker that you have been so mercifully preserved."

The duke lay where he was.

The brandy had revived him, and, to his surprise, he realised that, except for a more or less violent headache, he really felt as well as he had been when he first got into the train. He was not even aware of any bruises or contusions, save only that his left hand had been rather badly cut, and was covered with congealed blood.

He wondered exactly where he was, and he looked around him. The fog was still impenetrably dense, though it was illuminated here and there by glowing fires and moving torches—a strange Dantesque vision of moving forms and red light, dim and distorted, like some mysterious tragedy of the underworld.

Now and then some sharp and almost animal like cry of agony came to his ears, cutting through the gloom like a knife, horribly distressing to hear.

Nobody was immediately near him. He was outside the radius of the chief activities of the breakdown gang and the doctors. There was nothing for him to do but to wait where he was. The doctor would be certain not to forget him, and, besides, he had not the faintest notion in what direction to move in order to get away from all this horror.

So he lay still.

Presently the brandy, to which he was unaccustomed, began to work within him, and induced a languor and drowsiness. His heavy sable coat, all torn and soiled now, though it had cost him six hundred guineas less than a month before, kept his body warm, and, in addition to it, he was covered by sacking.

His mind wandered a little, and he was almost on the point of dropping to sleep when there was a sound as of approaching footsteps upon gravel or cinders. He heard a muttered and strangely husky conversation, apparently between two people, a quick, furtive ripple of talk, and then something descended upon his mouth, something warm and firm—a man's hand.

In the dark he could see two figures about him. A man had stooped down and brought his hand silently down upon his mouth, so that he could not cry out. Another was bending towards him on the other side, and soon he felt that deft hands were going through his pockets. When the doctor had touched him he had felt nothing but surprise and wonder at the prehensile intelligence of the touch. Now he shuddered.

He began to struggle, but found himself by no means so strong as he had imagined that he was a quarter of an hour ago.

A harsh voice hissed in his ear: "Now, stow that, or I'll make you!"

In all his life the Duke of Paddington had never been spoken to in such a way, and, ill as he was, the imperious blood leapt to his brain, and he redoubled his exertions.

Suddenly he stopped with a low gurgle of anguish.

His ear had been seized between two bony knuckles and twisted round with a sharp jerk until the pain was frightful.

Then he lay still once more.

He realised what was happening. The accident to the train had occurred on that part of the line some little way out of the station, upon which all sorts of more or less slum houses debouch. Two of those modern brigands who infest London had come, attracted to this scene of suffering and tragedy by the hope of plunder—even as in the old days, after a battlefield, obscene and terrible creatures appeared in the night and nameless deeds were done.

They had his watch. Sir John Bennett had made it specially for him. It was one of those repeating watches with all sorts of costly additional improvements, which can do almost anything but talk.

He heard the man about him say: "This 'ere's a rich bloke, Sidney; but the ticker's no blooming use except for the case. The—fence wouldn't look at it. Too easy to identify. Ah, this 'ere's better!"

He had found the duke's sovereign purse.

Swiftly, and with the skill born of long practice, the man went through every pocket. When he found the little case of green crocodile skin, in which the duke carried paper money, his cards, and a letter or two, he gave a low whistle of delight.

The duke could hear the little crackle close to his ear as the man counted the five-pound notes.

Almost immediately after this there was a gasp of astonishment.

"Look 'ere!" the other man said, "it's the bloomin' Duke of Paddington himself!"

The duke started, and obviously his captors imagined that he was about to recommence his struggles, for there was a sharp tweak of his ear once more. After that he heard nothing.

The two men had joined heads over his body and were whispering eagerly to each other. It seemed an eternity while he was lying there with the heavy hand upon his mouth, breathing with difficulty through his nostrils, though, in actual point of fact, from first to last, the whole thing was of less than two minutes' duration.

The men seemed to have come to some sort of agreement.

They acted with neatness and precision. A filthy and evil-smelling handkerchief was suddenly rammed into the duke's mouth. Another bandaged his eyes before he realised what was happening, and two pair of stalwart arms had him up upon his feet, locked in the London policeman's grip, and half carried, half hustled right away from where he had been lying almost before he realised what was happening.

He heard the click of a gate or door. His feet had left the gravel or cinder upon which they had been walking and were now apparently shuffling over flagstones. Then, by an added chill to the cold air, and a certain echo in the footsteps, he knew that he was being pushed down some sort of alley or cul de sac.

He was twisted from left to right and from right to left with the greatest rapidity, and half the extraordinary journey was not completed before he had utterly lost all idea of his whereabouts.

The noise of the distant rescuers at the scene of the accident sank into a low hum and then died completely away.

He seemed to be rushing along some maze or city of the dead, for no human sound save the noise of his and his captors' movements reached his ears.

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.

A large fire of coal and coke glowed in the white-washed fire-place. There were shelves with crockery and other utensils on each side of the fire. An ancient armchair, covered with torn and dirty chintz, was drawn to the fire, and in it sat a very large fat woman of middle age. She wore heavy gold earrings, bracelets were upon her wrists, and a glinting flash from her fat and dirty fingers showed that the diamonds in her rings were real. No one could have mistaken her for an instant for anything else than a Jewess.

There were five or six men in the room.

As the duke became accustomed to the light of the big paraffin lamp which hung from the ceiling he saw that all these men were singularly alike. They were all clean shaven, for one thing, and they all seemed to have the same expression. Their mouths were one and all intelligent and slightly deferential. Their eyes flickered a good deal hither and thither and were curiously and quietly watchful. There was a precision about their movements.

"Could they all be brothers?" he wondered idly, for his brain was still weakened by shock, "and could that fat woman with the filthy clothes and the rings be their mother?"

"Now, then, guv'nor," said one of the men with perfect politeness, but with a curious under-note of menace in his voice, "we know who your lordship is. It is a fair cop. We've got you 'ere, and of course you are not going away from 'ere unless you makes it nice and heasy for all parties."

The man spoke in a hoarse voice, but, again, a singularly quiet voice. Menace was there, it is true, but there was something cringing also.

Who could these men be? the duke thought idly and as if in a dream. They looked like actors. Yes, they were very much like actors. Was it that he had——

The true explanation burst in upon him. He remembered a certain magazine article he had once read with a curious mixture of disgust and pity, a magazine article which was illustrated by many photographs. These men were alike for a very sufficient reason. A terrible discipline had pressed them into its irremediable mould.

They were all old convicts. They were men who had "done time."