The Lost House

"Take THAT!" he shouted, with a flood of oaths, "and THAT, and THAT!"

Each word was punctuated by the report of his automatic, and to the amazement of Ford, was instantly answered from Sowell Street by a scattered volley of rifle and pistol shots.

"This isn't a fight," he cried, "it's a battle!"

With Miss Dale at his side, he ran into the front room, and, raising the blind, appeared at the window. And instantly, as at the other end of the house, there was, at sight of the woman's figure, a tumult of cries, a shout of warning, and a great roar of welcome. From beneath them a man ran into the deserted street, and in the glare of the gas-lamp Ford saw his white, upturned face. He was without a hat and his head was circled by a bandage. But Ford recognized Cuthbert. "That's Ford!" he cried, pointing. "And the girl's with him!" He turned to a group of men crouching in the doorway of the next house to the one in which Ford was imprisoned. "The girl's alive!" he shouted.

"The girl's alive!" The words were caught up and flung from window to window, from house-top to house-top, with savage, jubilant cheers. Ford pushed Miss Dale forward.

"Let them see you," he said, "and you will never see a stranger sight."

Below them, Sowell Street, glistening with rain and snow, lay empty, but at either end of it, held back by an army of police, were black masses of men, and beyond them more men packed upon the tops of taxicabs and hansoms, stretching as far as the street-lamps showed, and on the roofs shadowy forms crept cautiously from chimney to chimney; and in the windows of darkened rooms opposite, from behind barricades of mattresses and upturned tables, rifles appeared stealthily, to be lost in a sudden flash of flame. And with these flashes were others that came from windows and roofs with the report of a bursting bomb, and that, on the instant, turned night into day, and then left the darkness more dark.

Ford gave a cry of delight.

"They're taking flash-light photographs" he cried jubilantly. "Well done, you Pressmen!" The instinct of the reporter became compelling. "If they're alive to develop those photographs to-night," he exclaimed eagerly, "Cuthbert will send them by special messenger, in time to catch the MAURETANIA and the REPUBLIC will have them by Sunday. I mayn't be alive to see them," he added regretfully, "but what a feature for the Sunday supplement!"

As the eyes of the two prisoners became accustomed to the darkness, they saw that the street was not, as at first they had supposed, entirely empty. Directly below them in the gutter, where to approach it was to invite instant death from Prothero's pistol, lay the dead body of a policeman, and at the nearer end of the street, not fifty yards from them, were three other prostrate forms. But these forms were animate, and alive to good purpose. From a public-house on the corner a row of yellow lamps showed them clearly. Stretched on pieces of board, and mats commandeered from hallways and cabs, each of the three men lay at full length, nursing a rifle. Their belted gray overcoats, flat, visored caps, and the set of their shoulders marked them for soldiers.

"For the love of Heaven!" exclaimed Ford incredulously, "they've called out the Guards!"

As unconcernedly as though facing the butts at a rifle-range, the three sharp-shooters were firing point-blank at the windows from which Prothero and Pearsall were waging their war to the death upon the instruments of law and order. Beside them, on his knees in the snow, a young man with the silver hilt of an officer's sword showing through the slit in his greatcoat, was giving commands; and at the other end of the street, a brother officer in evening dress was directing other sharp-shooters, bending over them like the coach of a tug-of-war team, pointing with white-gloved fingers. On the side of the street from which Prothero was firing, huddled in a doorway, were a group of officials, inspectors of police, fire chiefs in brass helmets, more officers of the Guards in bear-skins, and, wrapped in a fur coat, the youthful Horne Secretary. Ford saw him wave his arm, and at his bidding the cordon of police broke, and slowly forcing its way through the mass of people came a huge touring-car, its two blazing eyes sending before it great shafts of light. The driver of the car wasted no time in taking up his position. Dashing half-way down the street, he as swiftly backed the automobile over the gutter and up on the sidewalk, so that the lights in front fell full on the door of No. 40. Then, covered by the fire from the roofs, he sprang to the lamps and tilted them until they threw their shafts into the windows of the third story. Prothero's hiding-place was now as clearly exposed as though it were held in the circle of a spot-light, and at the success of the maneuver the great mob raised an applauding cheer. But the triumph was brief. In a minute the blazing lamps had been shattered by bullets, and once more, save for the fierce flashes from rifles and pistols, Sowell Street lay in darkness.

Ford drew Miss Dale back into the room.

"Those men below," he said, "are mad. Prothero's always been mad, and your Pearsall is mad with drugs. And the sight of blood has made them maniacs. They know they now have no chance to live. There's no fear or hope to hold them, and one life more or less means nothing. If they should return here----"

He hesitated, but the girl nodded quickly. I understand," she said.

"I'm going to try to break down the door and get to the roof," explained Ford. "My hope is that this attack will keep them from hearing, and----"

"No," protested the girl. "They will hear you, and they will kill you."

"They may take it into their crazy heads to do that, anyway," protested Ford, "so the sooner I get you away, the better. I've only to smash the panels close to the bolts, put my arm through the hole, and draw the bolts back. Then, another blow on the spring lock when the firing is loudest, and we are in the hall. Should anything happen to me, you must know how to make your escape alone. Across the hall is a door leading to an iron ladder. That ladder leads to a trap-door. The trap- door is open. When you reach the roof, run westward toward a lighted building."

"I am not going without you," said Miss Dale quietly; "not after what you have done for me."

"I haven't done anything for you yet," objected Ford. "But in case I get caught I mean to make sure there will be others on hand who will."

He pulled his pencil and a letter from his pocket, and on the back of the envelope wrote rapidly: "I will try to get Miss Dale up through the trap in the roof. You can reach the roof by means of the apartment house in Devonshire Street. Send men to meet her."

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