but
formidable-looking life-preserver.

"Keep your distance, sir, or 'twill be the worse for you," he
threatened. "Hi!" he called. "Jerry! Beattie!"

Jerry, Beattie, and two other ruffians crowded to the doorway, but
advanced little beyond the threshold. Mr. Caryll turned to Sir Richard.
But Mr. Green was the first to speak.

"Sir Richard," said he, "you'll see that we are but instruments of the
law. It grieves me profoundly to have you for our object. But ye'll
see that 'tis no affair of ours, who have but to do the duty that we're
ordered. Ye'll not give these poor fellows trouble, I trust. Ye'll
surrender quietly."

Sir Richard's answer was to pull open a drawer in the writing-table, by
which he was standing, and whip out a pistol.

What exactly he may have intended, he was never allowed to announce. An
explosion shook the room, coming from the doorway, upon which Mr. Caryll
had turned his shoulder; there was a spurt of flame, and Sir Richard
collapsed forward onto the table, and slithered thence to the ground.

Jerry, taking fright at the sight of the pistol Sir Richard had
produced, had forestalled what he supposed to be the baronet's
intentions by firing instantly upon him, with this disastrous result.

Confusion ensued. Mr. Caryll, with no more thought for the tipstaves
than he had for the smoke in his eyes or the stench of powder in his
nostrils, sped to Sir Richard. In a passion of grief and anxiety, he
raised his adoptive father, aided by Bentley, what time Mr. Green was
abusing Jerry, and Jerry was urging in exculpation how he had acted
purely in Mr. Green's interest, fearing that Sir Richard might have been
on the point of shooting him.

The spy went forward to Mr. Caryll. "I am most profoundly sorry--" he
began.

"Take your sorrow to hell," snarled Mr. Caryll, his face livid, his eyes
blazing uncannily. "I believe ye've murdered him."

"Ecod! the fool shall smart for't if Sir Richard dies," grumbled Mr.
Green.

"What's that to me? You may hang the muckworm, and what shall that
profit any one? Will it restore me Sir Richard's life? Send one of your
ruffians for a doctor, man. And bid him hasten."

Mr. Green obeyed with alacrity. Apart from his regrets at this happening
for its own sake, it would suit his interests not at all that Sir
Richard should perish thus. Meanwhile, with the help of the valet, who
was blubbering like a child--for he had been with Sir Richard for over
ten years, and was