trap to be done to death. He fled with all his speed,
and Jim was no slouch of a runner. Down the narrow stairway he sped, and
along the hall to the second floor. The question was, could he reach the
library where he had climbed in, before the gang in the banquet hall
came rushing up the main staircase.

The chances were against his doing this for the pursuers had only half
the distance to go and they would be certain to respond to the alarm
with much promptness. The Mexican dwarf was notorious for the swiftness
of his attack, so that it looked bad for our friend Jim. He must reach
that room or what would happen?

CHAPTER XXII

BRIAN DE BOIS GUILBERT

There was just one thing that saved Jim at this juncture. It was an
incident which he did not guess at the time and I am not sure that he
became aware of it in later life, and yet there are reasons to surmise
that he may have heard of it.

As has not been related, the big guardian of the senorita in the cell
high up in the tower, had started to give the alarm to the gang in the
banquet hall by pressing a button near the door. James Darlington had
seen her make the move to ring, and his alarm had been added to by the
cry of warning from the crazy woman. He had to run for his life as the
reader well knows.

So much Jim was aware of but he did not see what had happened when the
red headed woman started to give the alarm. The Senorita da Cordova was
not a cowed and spiritless girl and in spite of the terror of her
situation, when she saw the intention of her jailer she glided the
length of the cell with remarkable swiftness and caught the arm of the
woman. The senorita was not a delicate creature either, and in spite of
her apparent pallor, she showed a lithe agility in struggling with this
giant of a woman, who had the strength of two ordinary men and was
probably nearly the equal of the redoubtable Jim himself.

After a struggle lasting some minutes, the girl was thrown with severe
violence against the wall of the cell and lay there stunned and bleeding
from a cut on the forehead, but her efforts had given Jim time to reach
the library which he had to pass and bolt and lock the door to it,
before ever the chase began. Meanwhile the unfortunate woman who had
been of so much help to Jim had time to flee to a remote corner of the
house, where she would be free from pursuit.

James had determined to make his escape the same way he had gotten in,
join his comra