whilst the other
projected some twenty feet beyond the edge of the roof. He slid down
to the dormer, and placing the ladder beside him, drew it up so that he
could reach the eighth rung. To this rung he made fast his rope, then
lowered the ladder again until the upper end of it was in line with
the window through which he sought to introduce it. But he found it
impossible to do so beyond the fifth rung, for at this point the end of
the ladder came in contact with the roof inside, and could be pushed no
farther until it was inclined downward. Now, the only possible way to
accomplish this was by raising the other end.

It occurred to him that he might, by so attaching the rope as to bring
the ladder across the window frame, lower himself hand over hand to the
floor of the attic. But in so doing he must have left the ladder there
to show their pursuers in the morning, not merely the way they had gone,
but for all he knew at this stage, the place where they might then be
still in hiding. Having come so far, at so much risk and labour, he was
determined to leave nothing to chance. To accomplish his object then, he
made his way down to the very edge of the roof, sliding carefully on
his stomach until his feet found support against the marble gutter, the
ladder meanwhile remaining hooked by one of its rungs to the sill of the
dormer.

In that perilous position he lifted his end of the ladder a few inches,
and so contrived to thrust it another foot or so through the window,
whereby its weight was considerably diminished. If he could but get it
another couple of feet farther in he was sure that by returning to the
dormer he would have been able to complete the job. In his anxiety to do
this and to obtain the necessary elevation, he raised himself upon his
knees.

But in the very act of making the thrust he slipped, and, clutching
wildly as he went, he shot over the edge of the roof. He found himself
hanging there, suspended above that terrific abyss by his hands and his
elbows, which had convulsively hooked themselves on to the edge of the
gutter, so that he had it on a level with his breast.

It was a moment of dread the like of which he was never likely to
endure again in a life that was to know many perils and many hairbreadth
escapes. He could not write of it nearly half a century later without
shuddering and growing sick with horror.

A moment he hung there gasping, then almost mechanically, guided by
the sheer instin