t time in his life. What horrible shame,
should the man come to his senses and see him!

He stepped back into his own room, ripped up his portmanteau, and took
out, from between the leather and the lining, a disguise and a mask.
He put them on.

Then he took his loaded cane; for he thought to himself, "No more
stabbing in that room," and he crept through the door like a cat.

The man lay breathing stertorously, and his lips blowing out at every
exhalation like lifeless lips urged by a strong wind, so that Cowen
began to fear, not that he might wake, but that he might die.

It flashed across him he should have to leave England.

What he came to do seemed now wonderfully easy; he took the key by its
ribbon carefully off the sleeper's neck; unlocked the despatch-box,
took off his hat, put the gold into it, locked the despatch-box,
replaced the key, took up his hatful of money, and retired slowly on
tiptoe as he came.

He had but deposited his stick and the booty on the bed, when the sham
drunkard pinned him from behind, and uttered a shrill whistle. With a
fierce snarl Cowen whirled his captor round like a feather, and dashed
with him against the post of his own door, stunning the man so that he
relaxed his hold, and Cowen whirled him round again, and kicked him in
the stomach so felly that he was doubled up out of the way, and
contributed nothing more to the struggle except his last meal. At this
very moment two Bow Street runners rushed madly upon Cowen through the
door of communication. He met one in full career with a blow so
tremendous that it sounded through the house, and drove him all across
the room against the window, where he fell down senseless; the other he
struck rather short, and though the blood spurted and the man
staggered, he was on him again in a moment, and pinned him. Cowen, a
master of pugilism, got his head under his left shoulder, and pommelled
him cruelly; but the fellow managed to hold on, till a powerful foot
kicked in the door at a blow, and Bradbury himself sprang on Captain
Cowen with all the fury of a tiger; he seized him by the throat from
behind, and throttled him, and set his knee to his back; the other,
though mauled and bleeding, whipped out a short rope, and pinioned him
in a turn of the hand. Then all stood panting but the disabled men,
and once more the passage and the room were filled with pale faces and
panting bosoms.

Lights flashed on the scene, and instantly loud