s to the
wrong room--see, quick!"

But there was no necessity for seeing. Mrs. Atterbury uttered a stifled
cry: "Help! help! murder!"

"You, Boone, know the place; stand by me and I'll see that we are not
nabbed; but you've made a nice mess of the affair."

But the comments of the indignant Jones were suddenly drowned in a
blood-curdling sound in the doorway: the savage, suppressed growl of a
dog, and the responsive imprecations of Number Two. With this came the
apparition of two figures, at sight of which Jones darted to the window,
the two figures, Jack and Dick, following to his right and left.

"Save your powder, whoever you are. Fire at me, and you hit the young
woman. I don't know who she is, but her body is my protection." Saying
this, Jones coolly, determinedly retreated backward to the window; but
Dick, hardly hearing, and certainly not comprehending, had come within
arm's length of the two, somewhat to the left of Jones.

"Don't fear, Rosa," Dick exclaimed, between his teeth. "I can see you.
Ah, ah!" Then four reports, that sounded as one, split the air.

Rosa broke from the thick cloud of smoke as a fifth report rang out, and
a scream of death went up between the bed and the door where Jack stood.

At the instant Dick spoke, Jack, in the doorway, heard an exclamation at
his side. He half turned, and as he did so his eye caught the outlines
of a man, with a shining something raised in the air, coming toward him
from the bedside. He pointed his own pistol at the figure, there were
three simultaneous reports, and the oncoming figure fell with a hoarse
cry of pain. The man at Jack's back now cried:

"Get through the window; they're coming through the house!"

"It's only a dog; come on."

Then there was a sound of flying feet in the wide passage.

"Are you hurt, Rosa? Tell me--did they hit you? Speak, oh, speak!" It
was Dick's voice, in a convulsive sob. Now, the boy again, that
danger was gone.

Jack meanwhile had struck a match, and soon found the candles on the
night-table near the bed. There was, at the same instant, the audible
sound of scurrying along the passage. He ran out. The man assailed by
the dog had reached the head of the stairs. As Jack got half-way down
the corridor, man and dog disappeared over the balustrade. When he
reached the hall the dog was inside, growling furiously, the door was
closed and the man gone. Jack opened the door. Pizarro bounded out, and
Jack followed. The dog st