rdo, "you can stand below at the door
and see that the road is kept open for us. Arthur Willaby can stay with
you. You others come with me. Have no fears, boys; for we have a dozen
witnesses that we are in the Union Bar at this very moment."

It was nearly midnight, and the street was deserted save for one or two
revellers upon their way home. The party crossed the road, and, pushing
open the door of the newspaper office, Baldwin and his men rushed in
and up the stair which faced them. McMurdo and another remained below.
From the room above came a shout, a cry for help, and then the sound of
trampling feet and of falling chairs. An instant later a gray-haired
man rushed out on the landing.

He was seized before he could get farther, and his spectacles came
tinkling down to McMurdo's feet. There was a thud and a groan. He was
on his face, and half a dozen sticks were clattering together as they
fell upon him. He writhed, and his long, thin limbs quivered under the
blows. The others ceased at last; but Baldwin, his cruel face set in an
infernal smile, was hacking at the man's head, which he vainly
endeavoured to defend with his arms. His white hair was dabbled with
patches of blood. Baldwin was still stooping over his victim, putting
in a short, vicious blow whenever he could see a part exposed, when
McMurdo dashed up the stair and pushed him back.

"You'll kill the man," said he. "Drop it!"

Baldwin looked at him in amazement. "Curse you!" he cried. "Who are you
to interfere--you that are new to the lodge? Stand back!" He raised his
stick; but McMurdo had whipped his pistol out of his hip pocket.

"Stand back yourself!" he cried. "I'll blow your face in if you lay a
hand on me. As to the lodge, wasn't it the order of the Bodymaster that
the man was not to be killed--and what are you doing but killing him?"

"It's truth he says," remarked one of the men.

"By Gar! you'd best hurry yourselves!" cried the man below. "The
windows are all lighting up, and you'll have the whole town here inside
of five minutes."

There was indeed the sound of shouting in the street, and a little
group of compositors and pressmen was forming in the hall below and
nerving itself to action. Leaving the limp and motionless body of the
editor at the head of the stair, the criminals rushed down and made
their way swiftly along the street. Having reached the Union House,
some of them mixed with the crowd in McGinty's saloon, whispering
acros