and turned to
go running up.

Now he must see us, as we saw him and his smooth, smug, flunkey's face
to the whites of its upturned eyes! My fists were clenched--and often I
wonder what I meant to do. What I did was to fall forward upon oozing
palms as the trap-door was let down with a bang.

"Didn't he see us, Delavoye? Are you sure he didn't?" I chattered as he
struck a match.

"Quite. I was watching his eyes--weren't you?"

"Yes--but they got all blurred at the finish."

"Well, pull yourself together; now's our time! It's an empty room
overhead; it wasn't half lit up. But we haven't done anything, remember,
if they do catch us."

He was on the steps already, but I had no desire to argue with him. I
was as ripe for a risk as Delavoye, as anxious to escape after the one
we had already run. The trap-door went up slowly, pushing something over
it into a kind of tent.

"It's only the rug," purred Delavoye. "I heard him take it up--thank
God--as well as put it down again. Now hold the candle; now the
trap-door, till I hold it up for you."

And we squirmed up into a vast apartment, not only empty as predicted,
but left in darkness made visible by the solitary light we carried now.
The little stray flame was mirrored in a floor like black ice, then
caught the sheen of the tumbled rug that Delavoye would stay to smooth,
then twinkled in the diamond panes of bookcases like church windows,
flickered over a high altar of a mantelpiece, and finally displayed our
stealthy selves in the window by which we left the house.

"Thank God!" said Delavoye as he shut it down again. "That's something
like a breath of air!"

"Hush!" I whispered with my back to him.

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard shouts of laughter."

"You're right. There they go again! I believe we've struck a heavy
entertainment."

In a dell behind the house, a spreading cedar caught the light of
windows that we could not see. Delavoye crept to the intermediate angle,
turned round, and beckoned in silhouette against the tree.

"High jinks and junketings!" he chuckled when I joined him. "The old
bloke must be away. Shall we risk a peep?"

My answer was to lead the way for once, and it was long before we
exchanged another syllable. But in a few seconds, and for more minutes,
we crouched together at an open window, seeing life with all our
innocent eyes.

It was a billiard-room into which we gazed, but it was not being used
for billiards. One end of