nd laid him
bleeding and senseless on his own hearth. The poker flew from his hand
as he fell. The crowd rushed in after him, upset his table, broke open
the door that protected his precious books, and with one vigorous kick
from the blacksmith's apprentice, sent in the door of Alec's retreat.
But at that moment Alec was contemplating the crowd below from a regal
seat between two red chimney-pots.

For as soon as he had drawn-to the door of the closet, instead of
finding darkness, he became aware of moonshine, coming through a door
that led out upon the roof. This he managed to open, and found himself
free of the first floor of the habitable earth, the cat-walk of the
world. As steady in foot and brain as any sailor, he scrambled up the
roof, seated himself as I have said, and gave himself up to the
situation. A sort of stubby underwood of chimney-pots grew all about
him out of red and blue ridges. Above him the stars shone dim in the
light of the moon, which cast opal tints all around her on the white
clouds; and beneath him was a terrible dark abyss, full of raging men,
dimly lighted with lamps. Cavernous clefts yawned in all directions, in
the side of which lived men and women and children. What a seething of
human emotions was down there! Would they ever be sublimed out of that
torture-pit into the pure air of the still heaven, in which the moon
rode like the very throne of peace?

Alec had gone through enough of trouble already to be able to feel some
such passing sympathy for the dwellers in the city below. But the
sounds of search in the closet recalled him to a sense of his position.
If his pursuers looked out at the door, they would see him at once. He
was creeping round to the other side of the chimney to cower in its
shadow, when a sudden bellow from the street apprized him that the
movement had discovered him to the crowd. Presently stones came flying
about the chimneys, and a busy little demon bounded into the house to
tell the ringleaders that he was on the roof. He therefore slid down
the slope away from the street, and passed on to the roof of the next
house, and thence to the third.

Arriving at a dingy dormer window, he found that it opened with ease,
admitting him into a little room crowded with dusty books and cobwebs.
He knew then that he was in the territorial outskirts of a certain
second-hand bookseller, with whom he had occasional dealings. He closed
the window, and sat down upon a pile of ne