that they should sleep in the hayloft. Clearly unnecessary, when he
was not averse to turning his common room into a dormitory. There
was his very evident relief when, after announcing that I would have
them sleep one in my room and one in the passage by my door, I
consented to their spending the night below; there was the presence
of those two very ill-looking cut-throats; there was the attempt to
carry off my sword; and, lastly, there was that creaking door and
the host's note of alarm.

What was that?

I stood up suddenly. Had my fancy, dwelling upon that very incident,
tricked me into believing that a door had creaked again? I listened,
but a silence followed, broken only by a drone of voices ascending
from the common room. As I had assured the host upon the stairs,
so I now assured myself that it was the wind, the signboard of the
inn, perhaps, swaying in the storm.

And then, when I had almost dismissed my doubts, and was about to
divest myself of my remaining clothes, I saw something at which I
thanked Heaven that I had not allowed the landlord to carry off my
rapier. My eyes were on the door, and, as I gazed, I beheld the
slow raising of the latch. It was no delusion; my wits were keen
and my eyes sharp; there was no fear to make me see things that
were not. Softly I stepped to the bed-rail where I had hung my
sword by the baldrick, and as softly I unsheathed it. The door
was pushed open, and I caught the advance of a stealthy step. A
naked foot shot past the edge of the door into my room, and for a
second I thought of pinning it to the ground with my rapier; then
came a leg, then a half-dressed body surmounted by a face - the