vigil, young Medlicott
froze and fired my blood by turns.

"I've been unjust to you," he said, with his right hand in his
dressing-gown pocket. "I thought for a bit--never mind what I
thought--I soon saw I was wrong. But--I've had this thing in my pocket
all the time!"

And he would have thrust his revolver upon me as a peace-offering, but
I would not even take his hand, as I tapped the life-preserver in my
pocket, and crept out to earn his honest grip or to fall in the
attempt. On the landing I drew Raffles's little weapon, slipped my
right wrist through the leathern loop, and held it in readiness over
my right shoulder. Then, down-stairs I stole, as Raffles himself had
taught me, close to the wall, where the planks are nailed. Nor had I
made a sound, to my knowledge; for a door was open, and a light was
burning, and the light did not flicker as I approached the door. I
clenched my teeth and pushed it open; and there was the veriest
villain waiting for me, his little lantern held aloft.

"You blackguard!" I cried, and with a single thwack I felled the
ruffian to the floor.

There was no question of a foul blow. He had been just as ready to
pounce on me; it was simply my luck to have got the first blow home.
Yet a fellow-feeling touched me with remorse, as I stood over the
senseless body, sprawling prone, and perceived that I had struck an
unarmed man. The lantern only had fallen from his hands; it lay on one
side, smoking horribly; and a something in the reek caused me to set
it up in haste and turn the body over with both hands.

Shall I ever forget the incredulous horror of that moment?

It was Raffles himself!

How it was possible, I did not pause to ask myself; if one man on
earth could annihilate space and time, it was the man lying senseless
at my feet; and that was Raffles, without an instant's doubt. He was
in villainous guise, which I knew of old, now that I knew the unhappy
wearer. His face was grimy, and dexterously plastered with a growth of
reddish hair; his clothes were those in which he had followed cabs
from the London termini; his boots were muffled in thick socks; and I
had laid him low with a bloody scalp that filled my cup of horror. I
groaned aloud as I knelt over him and felt his heart. And I was
answered by a bronchial whistle from the door.

"Jolly well done!" cheered my asthmatical friend. "I heard the whole
thing--only hope my mother didn't. We must keep it from her if we
can."