her whole honest body was tense
to the occasion; on the due moment she flung herself forward and the
brandished umbrella rained loud blows on aghast heads; and at the
same time she summoned to her aid her one accomplishment--she
shrieked. She was a strong woman, deep-chested, full-lunged; her raw
yell shattered the stillness of the night like some crazy trumpet; it
broke from her with the suddenness of a catastrophe, nerve-sapping,
ear-scaring, heart-striking. Before it and the assault of the stout
umbrella the robbers broke; a panic captured them; they squealed,
clasped at each other, and ran in mere senseless amaze. The Latin
blood, when diluted with Coast mixtures, is never remarkable for
courage; but braver men might have scattered at the alarm of that
mighty discordancy attacking from behind.

Fortunately the door they sought was not far off; through it they
entered a big untidy room, stone-floored as the custom is, and
littered with all the various trifles a man gathers about him on the
Coast. Miss Gregory put her patient on the narrow bed and turned to
the door; true to his fears, it would not lock. The youth was very
pale and in much fear; blood stained the back of his clothes, and his
eyes followed her about in appeal.

"You must wait a little," Miss Gregory told him. "I'll look at that
wound of yours when I've seen to the door. No lock, of course." She
pondered frowningly. "It's a childish thing at the best," she added
thoughtfully; "but it may be a novelty in these parts. Have you ever
arranged a booby trap, my boy?"

"No," he answered, wonderingly.

Miss Gregory shook her head. "The lower classes are getting worse and
worse," she observed. She put a chair by the door, which stood a
little ajar, and looked about her.

"As you are going away you won't want this china." It was his ewer
and wash-hand basin. "I don't see anything better, and it'll make a
smash, at any rate."

"What you goin' to do, ma'am?" asked the man on the bed.

"Watch," she bade him. It was not easy, but with care she managed to
poise the basin and the ewer in it on top of the door, so that it
leaned on the lintel and must fall as soon as the door was pushed
wider.

"Now," she said, when it was done, "let's have a look at that cut."

It was an ugly gash high in the back, to the left of the spine--a
bungler's or a coward's attempt at the terrible heart-stab. Miss
Gregory, examining it carefully, was of opinion that she could have