ead! No--the
devil!--it is Pizarro--dead! Kneel down and strike a match, keeping
between the light and the window. One glance will be enough."

One glimpse revealed the dog with distended tongue and half-glazed eyes,
but still alive. Jack loosed the band from the neck. The dog gave a
convulsive thrill and uttered a plaintive moan.

"Set a basin of water down here. He may recover. Poor fellow! This was a
cruel return for his kindness to Wesley," Jack said, forcing the dog's
nose into the basin. He began to lap the cool water greedily. But now
Dick, in the doorway, littered a cry.

"They are in the house. I hear them moving in the vestibule. Come, for
God's sake, Jack! They are making for Mrs. Atterbury's apartment.
Evidently some one who knows that the family jewels are there, for what
else can they want?"

The dog staggered to his feet as the two stole softly from the room.
They followed with high-wrought, loudly-beating hearts and tingling
nerves. The marauders in front of them moved on like men accustomed to
the house. They made, as the light footfalls indicated, straight for
Mrs. Atterbury's door, which, unlike the others, fronted the length of
the hall in a small vestibule sunk into the lateral wall. The invaders
were thus screened from Jack and Dick when they had turned the corner,
and the latter were forced to move with painful caution to get the
advantage of surprise to offset superior numbers. But now a new peril
menaces them. A shuffling in the long corridor behind them freezes the
current of their blood. They have been caught in a trap. There are two
forces in the house. They both turn and halt, silent and trembling,
against the south wall and wait. The steps still advance, the scraping
of the nailed boots tears the light matting.

"We will wait until the new-comer or new-comers are abreast," Jack
breathes in Dick's ear, "and then fire a volley into them point blank."

At the instant Rosa's shriek, blood-curdling and electric, breaks from
the corner. Dick is over the intervening steps in two mighty bounds,
Jack at his heels and the foe in the rear following. Against the open
window Dick catches the outlines of his darling in the brawny arms of
Tarquin. He has the advantage of the light, and, as the ruffian retreats
to the window, Dick is at his side, and in an instant deals him a
stunning blow on the head. Jack, in the dim light, sees the dark figure
dashing at him with the gleam of steel in his hand. He