laced on the middle sleeper of a railroad-bridge, with an express-train
coming at me without a cowcatcher. Presently I overtook the Doctor's
coat-tails again, and found that they were ascending a staircase. At the
top of the stairs was a door, and on the other side of the door was a
room, the uses of which I won't undertake to swear to, for I never saw
it, although I was in it longer than I wanted to be. All I know is
that it seemed to be as full of chairs, and tables, and sofas, and
sideboards, and stoves, and crickets, as if it had been a shop for
second-hand furniture. I was just rubbing my shins after an encounter
with a remarkably solid object, nature uncertain, when somebody near me
fell over something with a crash and a groan. Immediately somebody else
seized me by the cravat and began to throttle me. Whoever it was, I
floored him with a right-hander, and sent him across the other person,
as I judged by the combined grunt, and the desperate, though dumb
struggle which followed. Now there were two of them down, and how many
standing I could not guess. An instant afterward, a muffled voice, like
that of a man only half awake, shouted from a room behind me, "Who's
there? Get out! I'm a-coming!" This seemed to encourage the individuals
who were having a rough-and-tumble on the carpet, for they commenced
roaring simultaneously, "Help! murder! thieves! fire!" without, however,
relaxing hostilities for a moment.

The next pleasant incident was a pistol-shot, the ball of which whizzed
so near my head that it made me dodge, although I have not the least
notion who fired it or whom it was aimed at. Female screams and
masculine shouts now sounded from various directions. Thinking that
I had done all the good in my power, I concluded to get out of this
confusion; but either the doorway by which we entered had suddenly
walled itself up, or else I had lost my reckoning; for, stumble where I
would, feel about as I would, I could not find it. I did, indeed, come
to an opening in the wall, but there was no staircase the other side of
it, and it simply introduced me to another invisible apartment. I had no
chance to reflect upon the matter and decide of my own free will whether
I would go in or not. A sudden rush of fighting, howling persons swept
me along, jammed me against a pillar, pushed me over a table, and forced
me to engage in a furious struggle, exceedingly awkward by reason of the
darkness and the extraordinary amount of