stand at the threshold while Wesley and Jones secured Davis.

Now they are in the room. There is no sound; but from the open window,
looking upon the carriage-road, there is the tramping of horses,
drowning all sounds in the room. They are nearly to the large canopied
bed between the open windows, when Jones, who is nearest, discovers a
startled apparition half rising from the bed. He is discovered by the
figure at the same instant, and a piercing scream, so loud, prolonged,
and ear-splitting that it echoes over the house, ends the wild dream of
the marauders. Wesley reels in panic. But Jones is an old campaigner. If
he can't have victory, there must be no recapture. He rushes at the
white figure, and snatches--Rosa, limp, nerveless, and swooning!

"See who's in the bed!--I'm damned if you haven't brought us to the
wrong room--see, quick!"

But there was no necessity for seeing. Mrs. Atterbury uttered a stifled
cry: "Help! help! murder!"

"You, Boone, know the place; stand by me and I'll see that we are not
nabbed; but you've made a nice mess of the affair."

But the comments of the indignant Jones were suddenly drowned in a
blood-curdling sound in the doorway: the savage, suppressed growl of a
dog, and the responsive imprecations of Number Two. With this came the
apparition of two figures, at sight of which Jones darted to the window,
the two figures, Jack and Dick, following to his right and left.

"Save your powder, whoever you are. Fire at me, and you hit the young
woman. I don't know who she is, but her body is my protection." Saying