I hurried on a few clothes, and then I tried to find the bureau in the dark. This was not easy, as I lost my bearings entirely. But I found it at last, got the top drawer open and took out my pistol. Then I slipped out of the room, hurried up the stairs, opened the door (setting off the alarm there, by the way), and ran along the deck (there was a cold night wind), and hastily descended the steep steps that led into the boarder's room. The door that was at the bottom of the steps was not fastened, and as I opened it a little stray moonlight illumined the room. I hastily stepped to the bed and shook the boarder by the shoulder. He kept his pistol under his pillow.
In an instant he was on his feet, his hand grasped my throat, and the cold muzzle of his Derringer pistol was at my forehead. It was an awfully big muzzle like the mouth of a bottle.
I don't know when I lived so long as during the first minute that he held me thus.
"Rascal!" he said. "Do as much as breathe, and I'll pull the trigger."
I didn't breathe.
I had an accident insurance on my life. Would it hold good in a case like this? Or would Euphemia have to go back to her father?
He pushed me back into the little patch of moon-light.
"Oh! is it you?" he said, relaxing his grasp. "What do you want? A mustard plaster?"
He had a package of patent plasters in his room. You took one and dipped it in hot water, and it was all ready.
"No," said I, gasping a little. "Burglars."
"Oh!" he said, and he put down his pistol and put on his clothes.
40
