Yet another moment, and Bunky was enjoying an embrace that squeezed most of the wind out of his body, strong though he was, for Number 666 was apt to forget his excessive power when duty constrained him to act with promptitude.
“Now, then, show a light,” said Giles, quietly.
Two bull’s-eyes flashed out their rich beams at the word, and lit up a tableau of three, in attitudes faintly resembling those of the Laocoon, without the serpents.
“Fetch the bracelets,” said Giles.
At these words the bull’s-eyes converged, and Sniveller, bolting through the open door, vanished—he was never heard of more!
Then followed two sharp clicks, succeeded by a sigh of relief as Number 666 relaxed his arms.
“You needn’t rouse the household unless you feel inclined, my man,” said Giles to Bunky in a low voice.
Bunky did not feel inclined. He thought it better, on the whole, to let the sleeping dogs lie, and wisely submitted to inevitable fate. He was marched off to jail, while one of the constables remained behind to see the house made safe, and acquaint Sir Richard of his deliverance from the threatened danger.
Referring to this matter on the following day in the servants’ hall, Thomas Balls filled a foaming tankard of ginger-beer—for, strange to say, he was an abstainer, though a butler—and proposed, in a highly eulogistic speech, the health and prosperity of that admirable body of men, the Metropolitan Police, with which toast he begged to couple the name of Number 666!