A sound as of a clattering troop of cavalry, the neighing of horses in the grounds! Wesley halted, trembling, dismayed.
"That's all right," Jones whispered, "I ordered the stables opened so that the horses wouldn't be handy, if any one should happen to be at hand who felt like pursuing us, or going for the cavalry."
"It was a mistake; the horses will arouse the house. We must hurry."
In a moment they were before the door of the Davis room. Wesley raised the latch. It was an old-fashioned fastening. Number Two was directed to 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 this, Jones coolly, determinedly retreated backward to the window; but Dick, hardly hearing, and certainly not comprehending, had come within arm's length of the two, somewhat to the left of Jones.