"Well done, Bunny! I've knocked him out--I've knocked him out!
Run you to the door and see if the attendants have heard
anything, and take them on if they have."

Mechanically I did as I was told. There was no time for
thought, still less for remonstrance or reproach, though my
surprise must have been even more complete than that of the
constable before Raffles knocked the sense out of him. Even in
my utter bewilderment, however, the instinctive caution of the
real criminal did not desert me. I ran to the door, but I
sauntered through it, to plant myself before a Pompeiian fresco
in the corridor; and there were the two attendants still
gossiping outside the further door; nor did they hear the dull
crash which I heard even as I watched them out of the corner of
each eye.

It was hot weather, as I have said, but the perspiration on my
body seemed already to have turned into a skin of ice. Then I
caught the faint reflection of my own face in the casing of the
fresco, and it frightened me into some semblance of myself as
Raffles joined me with his hands in his pockets. But my fear
and indignation were redoubled at the sight of him, when a
single glance convinced me that his pockets were as empty as his
hands, and his mad outrage the most wanton and reckless of his
whole career.

"Ah, very interesting, very interesting, but nothing to what
they have in the museum at Naples or in Pompeii itself. You
must go there some day, Bunny. I've a good mind to take you