he leader grimly.
"Mebbe you'd best bear down on it first, Jim, to see if the thing will
hold you up."

Jim's prompt obedience came near costing him his life. Seizing the rope
with both hands he jerked his knees up toward his chin and swung himself
clear of the floor; whereupon the hook which held the chandelier, and
which was not intended to support so heavy a weight, was torn from its
socket and the ponderous fixture came down upon the head of the robber,
crushing him, bleeding and senseless, to the floor. But the room was not
left in darkness, as Marcy wished it had been; for the single lamp that
lighted it was on a side table, safely out of the way. Every one in the
room was struck motionless and speechless with amazement and alarm, and
if Marcy Gray had only had two good hands to use, the disaster to the
robber band would have been greater than it was. Their leader was so
nearly paralyzed with astonishment that a quick, dexterous fellow, such
as Marcy usually was, could have prostrated and disarmed him with very
little trouble; but under the circumstances it would have been foolhardy
to attempt it.

As was to have been expected, Mrs. Gray was the first to recover herself
and the first to act. In less than two seconds after the robber struck
the floor she was by his side, trying with both hands to remove the
chandelier from his prostrate form. The sight brought Marcy to his
senses.

"Are you lubbers going to stand there and let the man die before your
eyes?" he shouted. "Why don't you bear a hand and get him out?"

These words proved to be almost as magical as the "whistle shrill" with
which Roderick Dhu was wont to summon his Highland clan. Before they had
fairly left Marcy's lips the boy Julius danced into the room through the
door that led into the hall, shouting at the top of his voice:

"Here dey is! Here dey is! Shoot----" Then he stopped stock still, and
rolled the whites of his eyes toward the wreck in the middle of the
floor--the shattered lamps, the broken chandelier with the robber's legs
sticking out from under it--and finished by saying, "Dere's a muss for
de gals to clean up in de mawnin. Why don't you shoot 'em?"

Almost at the same instant the doorway behind the prancing darky was
filled by armed and masked men, who filed rapidly into the apartment,
turning right and left along the wall to give their companions in the
rear room to follow them. Not a word was said or a thing done until a
dozen