l
person with the short moustache led the advance. The fool stood still
upon the top step to let out the loudest and cheeriest view-holloa that
ever smote my ears.

It cost him more than he may know until I tell him. There was the wide
part of the landing between us; we had just that much start along the
narrow part, with the walls and doors upon our left, the banisters on
our right, and the baize door at the end. But if the great Guillemard
had not stopped to live up to his sporting reputation, he would
assuredly have laid one or other of us by the heels, and either would
have been tantamount to both. As I gave Raffles a headlong lead to the
baize door, I glanced down the great well of stairs, and up came the
daft yells of these sporting oafs:

"Gone away--gone away!"

"Yoick--yoick--yoick?"

"Yon-der they go?"

And gone I had, through the baize door to the back landing, with
Raffles at my heels. I held the swing door for him, and heard him bang
it in the face of the spluttering and blustering master of the house.
Other feet were already in the lower flight of the backstairs; but the
upper flight was the one for me, and in an instant we were racing along
the upper corridor with the chuckle-headed pack at our heels. Here it
was all but dark--they were the servants' bedrooms that we were passing
now--but I knew what I was doing. Round the last corner to the right,
through the first door to the left and we were in the room underneath
the tower. In our time a long stepladder had led to the tower itself.
I rushed in the dark to the old corner. Thank God, the ladder was
there still! It leaped under us as we rushed aloft like one quadruped.
The breakneck trap-door was still protected by a curved brass
stanchion; this I grasped with one hand, and then Raffles with the
other as I felt my feet firm upon the tower floor. In he sprawled
after me, and down went the trap-door with a bang upon the leading
hound.

I hoped to feel his dead-weight shake the house, as he crashed upon the
floor below; but the fellow must have ducked, and no crash came.
Meanwhile not a word passed between Raffles and me; he had followed me,
as I had led him, without waste of breath upon a single syllable. But
the merry lot below were still yelling and bellowing in full cry.

"Gone to ground? screamed one.

"Where's the terrier?" screeched another.

But their host of the mighty girth--a man like a soda-water bottle,
from my one glimp