nced.

"Stop! Don't move, don't yell. I have you covered!" was Little
Billy's sharp injunction; and Martin caught the gleam of steel in the
other's hand, saw the muzzle of a revolver pointed at his chest.

"No, no, don't shoot!" he exclaimed. "It is I, Martin Blake, the law
clerk. Don't you remember--the fellow who was talking to you by the
fire hydrant?"

"The law clerk! Good Lord! Have they shanghaied you?"

"Yes, I'm locked in this room," said Martin. "They are guarding the
door. That fellow, Spulvedo, just took a shot at me because I tried to
break out. Don't speak loudly--they'll overhear."

"I'm coming in," whispered Little Billy.

He wriggled his body further over the sill, swung about and dropped to
the floor by Martin's side. Immediately, he turned and thrust his head
out of the window and spoke a few words in an undertone to some one
below.

Martin leaned over Little Billy's shoulder and peered out. He
discovered the means by which the hunchback had reached that second
story window--about nine feet below was the roof of a shed that abutted
against the side of the building, and on the farther side of the shed
was a dark space that looked like an alley, a freight entrance probably
to the great brick warehouse that reared its blank, windowless side
just opposite. He saw that his previous surmise had been correct--this
room he had been confined in was a rear room, the shed below was
doubtless an outhouse of the saloon, the street yonder was Green Street.

Martin grasped these details at a glance. What really interested him
at the moment was a man's figure just below him on the roof of the
shed. The upturned face was but a few feet distant; the man bulked
huge in the shadow. It was the boatswain. Martin divined the method
of the hunchback's assault upon the shutters--he had evidently stood
upon the giant's shoulders.

"Stand by, Bos," called Little Billy softly. "I'm inside, all right."

"Aye, aye," came the answering rumble. "'Ave you found 'er, lad?
'Oo's that lookin' over your shoulder?"

"It is that clerk," said Little Billy. "'Wild Bob' locked him up. No,
she isn't----"

He straightened up and clutched Martin's arm.

"You in here alone?" he demanded. "I am looking----"

"I know--a girl," interrupted Martin excitedly. "I think she is in the
next room. A white girl. The japs caught her and turned her over to
Carew. Had on a man's gray overcoat, and----"

"Did you see h