are glad you're still alive. That officer is aiming at the window
BELOW us. He's after the men who murdered his mates."

From the window directly beneath them came the crash of a rifle,
and from the top of the ladder the revolver of the police officer
blazed in the darkness. Again the rifle crashed, and the man on the
ladder jerked his hands above his head and pitched backward. Ford
looked into the face of the girl and found her eyes filled with
horror.

"Where is my uncle, Pearsall?" she faltered. "He has two
rifles--for shooting in Scotland. Was that a rifle that----" Her
lips refused to finish the question.

"It was a rifle," Ford stammered, "but probably Prothero----"

Even as he spoke the voice of the Jew rose in a shriek from the
floor below them, but not from the window below them. The sound was
from the front room opening on Sowell Street. In the awed silence
that had suddenly fallen his shrieks carried sharply. They were
more like the snarls and ravings of an animal than the outcries of
a man.

"Take THAT!" he shouted, with a flood of oaths, "and THAT, and
THAT!"

Each word was punctuated by the report of his automatic, and to the
amazement of Ford, was instantly answered from Sowell Street by a
scattered volley of rifle and pistol shots.