“Don’t treat the poor burglars too cruelly, Dr. Pennington,” cried Clara, looking over the baluster, and then with a laugh she vanished.
“I wonder what she meant by that,” thought Pennington, as he went back to the library. In a minute Bridget appeared with sheets and blankets, and in a short time had made up a bed on the broad lounge. Then she departed and Pennington was left alone.
“Suppose the burglars should come,” he thought, as he prepared to turn in. “But it’s not likely they will. At any rate, I mustn’t let my imagination run away with me; so here goes.” And with that he turned out the gas and settled himself on the lounge, where, in spite of discomforts present and burglars to be, he was soon fast asleep.
He had been asleep, it seemed to him, for hours, when he suddenly sat up, wide awake in an instant. Had he dreamed that he had heard footsteps at the back of the house, or was there really some one moving about? Pennington listened with every nerve strained to its utmost tension. There it goes again! He was sure he heard a noise. It came from the dining-room—and it sounded like the rattling of silver.
“They’re here,” he muttered, and drew a long breath. “What in thunder am I to do? Ah! I’ll get that old pistol and use the poker as a hammer; the old thing has a cap on it.” Crawling softly from the lounge, he groped his way towards the fireplace. The room was as dark as a pocket, and before he had finished his uncertain journey he struck his foot smartly against the coal-scuttle. It rattled. He made a dive to stop it from falling, and in so doing upset it. It fell with a crash loud enough, it seemed to him, to wake the Seven Sleepers.
Despite the pain of his stubbed foot, Pennington did not hug his injured member with the affection usually displayed on such occasions but ground his teeth and listened intently for any sign from the burglars that they had heard him.
A moment of suspense; then he assured himself that they had heard nothing, and, securing pistol and poker, started for the library door. He reached it safely, and, opening it noiselessly, looked out into the hall. A narrow streak of light from the partly-opened dining-room door showed him where to steer, and, grasping the poker firmly in his right hand and the pistol in his left, he tiptoed across the hall. The rattling of silver in the dining-room continued, and almost drowned the nearer and solemn tick of an old eight-day clock, whose brass and iron nerves the doctor envied.
Creeping cautiously to the door, he looked through the crack. The light was turned half on in the dining-room. At the farther end of the room, with his back turned towards him, was an old man, who seemed to be taking silver from the drawers of the sideboard and putting it into a basket at his side.
“The old villain!” thought Pennington. “How cool he is! I wonder where the other two fellows are. Somewhere at hand, I suppose.”
Suddenly the burglar turned half around, as though he were about to leave the room. Pennington shrank back.