"Let him go. Let him take a look at us from the upper windows. He will understand that nothing but wings will save him."
Silence. By and by a watcher reported that he heard the scuttle of the roof rattle.
"Look!" another cried, startled.
A bluish glare came from the roof.
"He's shooting off a Roman candle!"
They never saw the man-made bird till it alighted upon the roof. They never thought of shooting at it until it had taken wing! Then they rushed the doors of the house. They made short work of Jones, whom they tied up like a Christmas fowl and plumped roughly into a chair. They broke open the safe, to find it empty. And while the rogues were rummaging about the room, venting their spite upon many a treasure they could neither appreciate nor understand, a man from the outside burst in.
"The old man is dead and the money is at the bottom of the ocean! We punctured her. She's gone!"
A thin, inscrutable smile stirred the lips of the man bound in the chair.