the foot, he dared not waste a minute to go back
and hunt for the gun in the dark. He was totally at a loss for
directions; he had expected to find himself in the Captain's rooms,
and the stairs were unknown. Now he could just make out a door ahead
of him and sent it flying open, smash in the face of an astonished
black boy who went stumbling backwards.

Out went Billy's fist and caught the unguarded chin a staggering
blow, and as the boy reeled back he flung one hurried glance about
the big, lamp-lit chamber in which he found himself, the room
evidently of Captain Kerissen, and darted to an arsenal of weapons
that glinted against the inlaid panels. Wrenching down the shortest
scabbard he jerked out a most villainous looking two-edged knife and
gripping this piratical weapon he bounded out the door, fled through
the dim hall to his right, rounded a corner, to the right again,
hearing the sounds of pursuit louder and louder now behind him, shot
through a vast reception hall and plunged down a flight of stairs.

From the darkness below a figure rose up to receive him with a grip
like iron. Billy's right arm was doubled at his side; the blade of
that villainous old dagger was pressed against the yielding softness
of the fellow's sash, but for the life of him Billy could not drive
home that knife against the human flesh. With a convulsive movement
he tore himself from those gorilla arms and sent up a desperate
kick, then leaped past the staggering man, and with the unused knife
in his teeth, he tore at the bars of the great gate in the wall at
his left. The bars were stiff and primitive and resisted his furious
fingers, and the big gate-keeper, gasping for a moment against the
stairs, suddenly straightened and sprang toward him.

"Here's one hero that didn't open the door 'in the nick of time'!"
raced through Billy's grimly humorous mind, as he dodged the savage
thrust of a knife the man had drawn and turned and scuttled across
the court with the other on his heels. Through the arches he darted
and then down into the garden, sprinting as he had never sprinted
before, on, on to the southwest angles of the wall, thanking Heaven
fervently, as every step outdistanced his pursuer, that the man had
evidently no gun.

The rope ladder was still there, blown free at the bottom now and
waving merrily in the wind. He snatched at it, dropping his knife in
his pocket, praying that the top hooks had not become dislodged, and
after