"Don't fear, Rosa," Dick exclaimed, between his teeth. "I can see you.
Ah, ah!" Then four reports, that sounded as one, split the air.
Rosa broke from the thick cloud of smoke as a fifth report rang out, and a scream of death went up between the bed and the door where Jack stood.
At the instant Dick spoke, Jack, in the doorway, heard an exclamation at his side. He half turned, and as he did so his eye caught the outlines of a man, with a shining something raised in the air, coming toward him from the bedside. He pointed his own pistol at the figure, there were three simultaneous reports, and the oncoming figure fell with a hoarse cry of pain. The man at Jack's back now cried:
"Get through the window; they're coming through the house!"
"It's only a dog; come on."
Then there was a sound of flying feet in the wide passage.
"Are you hurt, Rosa? Tell me—did they hit you? Speak, oh, speak!" It was Dick's voice, in a convulsive sob. Now, the boy again, that danger was gone.
Jack meanwhile had struck a match, and soon found the candles on the night-table near the bed. There was, at the same instant, the audible sound of scurrying along the passage. He ran out. The man assailed by the dog had reached the head of the stairs. As Jack got half-way down the corridor, man and dog disappeared over the balustrade. When he reached the hall the dog was inside, growling furiously, the door was closed and the man gone. Jack opened the door. Pizarro bounded out, and Jack followed. The dog stopped a moment, sniffed the ground, and made for the kitchen. A loud bark, followed by a ferocious growl, and a scream of mortal pain broke on the air; then a pistol-shot, and a long, pitiful gasp, and silence.
"Well, that dog won't trouble any one now," Jack heard, and the voice made his hair rise into bristling quills.
"Barney!" he cried; "Barney Moore, is that you?"