have
entered head foremost if the man on the other side had not stemmed the
torrent of torn woodwork. Even as it was I went down on all fours, and
was only struggling to my feet as his figure showed dimly in the open
window. Delavoye fired over my head at the same instant, but his
revolver "squibbed" like that far-away Snider, and before I could hack
with his battle-axe at their rope-ladder, the last of the thieves was
safe and sound on _terra firma_.

[Illustration: Delavoye fired over my head.]

"Don't do that!" cried Delavoye. "It's our one chance of nabbing 'em."

And he was out of the window and swinging down the rope-ladder while the
ruffians were yet in the yard below. But they did not wait to punish his
foolhardihood; the gate into the back garden banged before he reached
the ground, and he hardly had it open when the last of the bunch of
ropes slid hot through my hands.

"After them!" he grunted, giving chase to shadowy forms across the
soaking grass. His revolver squibbed again as he ran. They did not stop
to return his fire; but across the strawberry bed, at the end of the
garden, the high split fence rattled and rumbled with the weight of the
flying gang; and there was a dropping crackle of brushwood on the other
side, as I came up with Delavoye under the overhanging branches of the
horse-chestnuts.

"Going over after them?" I panted, prepared to follow where he led.

"I'm afraid it's no good now," he answered, peering at his revolver in
the darkness. The chambers ticked like the reel of a rod. "Besides,
there's one of them cast a shoe or something. I trod on it a moment
ago." He stooped and groped in the manure of the strawberry bed. "A shoe
it is, Gilly, by all that's lucky!"

"You wouldn't like to dog them a bit further?" I suggested. "The fellow
with one shoe won't take much overhauling?"

"No, Gilly," said Delavoye, abandoning the chase as incontinently as he
had started it, but with equal decision; "I think it's about time to see
what they've taken, as well as what they've left."

Their rope-ladder was still swaying from the bathroom window, and it
served our turn again since Uvo was without his key. He climbed up
first, and the window flared into a square of gas-light before I gained
the sill. The scene within was quite instructive. The family chest was
clamped right round with iron bands, like the straps of a portmanteau,
and the lock in each band had defied the ingenuity of the thieves; so