ction--and Rhoda Gray,
divining his intention, sprang for the cot, too, at the same time. But
Danglar never reached his objective. As Rhoda Gray caught up the weapons
and thrust them into her pocket, she heard Danglar's furious snarl,
and whirling around, she saw the two men locked and struggling in each
other's embrace.

The Adventurer's voice reached her, quick, imperative:

"Show the candle at the window, Rhoda! The Sparrow is waiting for it in
the yard below. Then open the door for them."

A sudden terror and fear seized her. The Adventurer was not fit, after
what he had been through to-night to cope with Danglar. He had been
limping badly even a few minutes ago. It seemed to her, as she rushed
across the garret and snatched up the candle, that Danglar was getting
the best of it even now. And the Adventurer could have shot him down,
and been warranted in doing it! She reached the window, waved the candle
frantically several times across the pane, then setting the candle down
on the window ledge, she ran for the door.

She looked back again, as she turned the key in the lock. With a crash,
pitching over the chair, both men went to the floor--and the Adventurer
was underneath. She cried out in alarm, and wrenched the door open--and
stood for an instant there on the threshold in a startled way.

They couldn't be coming already! The Sparrow hadn't had time even to
get out of the yard. But there were footsteps in the hall below, many of
them. She stepped out on the landing; it was too dark to see, but...

A sudden yell as she showed even in the faint light of the open garret
door, the quicker rush of feet, reached her from below.

"The White Moll! That's her! The White Moll!" She flung herself flat
down, wrenching both the automatic and the revolver from her pocket. She
understood now! That was Pinkie Bonn's voice. It was the gang arriving
to divide up the spoils, not the Sparrow and the police. Her mind was
racing now with lightning speed. If they got her, they would get the
Adventurer in there, too, before the police could intervene. She
must hold this little landing where she lay now, hold those short,
ladder-like steps that the oncoming footsteps from below there had
almost reached.

She fired once--twice--again; but high, over their heads, to check the
rush.

Yells answered her. A vicious tongue-flame from a revolver, another
and another, leaped out at her from the black below; the spat, spat of
bullets s