The Stories of the Three Burglars | Page 4

inch, it's burglars!" and she sprang
out of bed and seized me by the arm.
"I must go down," I said; "but there is really no reason for your being
frightened. I shall call David, and shall carry my pistol, so there is
really no danger. If there are thieves in the house they have probably
decamped by this time--that is, if they are able to do so, for of course
they must know that noise would awaken the soundest sleepers."
My wife looked at me and then slowly withdrew her hands from my
arm.
"You promise me," she said, "if you find a burglar downstairs in the
possession of his senses you will immediately come back to me and
George William?"
I promised her, and, slipping on some clothes, I went out into the
second-story hall. I carried no light. Before I had reached the bottom of
the back stairs I heard David, my man, coming down. To be sure it was
he and not a burglar I spoke to him in a low voice, my pistol raised in
case of an unsatisfactory reply.
"I heard that noise, sir," he whispered, "and was going down to see
about it."
"Are you ready if it's thieves?" I whispered.
"I have got the biscuit-beater," he replied.
"Come on, then," said I, and we went downstairs.
I had left no light in the library, but there was one there now, and it
shone through the open door into the hallway. We stopped and listened.
There was no sound, and then slowly and cautiously we approached the
door of the library. The scene I beheld astounded me, and involuntarily
I sprang back a step or two. So did David; but in an instant we saw that
there was no need of retreat or defence. Stretched upon the floor, not
far from the doorway, lay a tall man, his face upturned to the light of a
bull's-eye lantern which stood by the mantel-piece. His eyes were shut,
and it was evident that he was perfectly insensible. Near by, in the
wreck of the small table, glasses, and decanters, lay another man,
apparently of heavier build. He also was as still as a corpse. A little
further back, half sitting on the floor, with the upper part of his body

resting against the lounge, was another man with a black mask over his
face.
"Are they dead?" exclaimed David, in an undertone of horror.
"No," said I, "they are not dead; they have been caught in my trap."
And I must admit that the consciousness of this created a proud
exultation of spirit within me. I had overmatched these rascals; they
were prostrated before me. If one of them moved, David and I could
kill him. But I did not believe there would be any killing, nor any
moving for the present.
In a high whisper, which could have been heard distinctly all over the
house, my wife now called to me from the top of the stairs. "What is
it?" she said. "What has happened?"
I stepped quickly to the stairway.
"Everything is all right," I said in a loud, distinct voice, intended to
assure my wife that there was no necessity for caution or alarm. "I will
be with you presently."
"I am glad to hear that nothing is the matter," said Aunt Martha, now
for the first time opening her door. "I was afraid something had
happened."
But I had business to attend to before I could go upstairs. In thinking
over and arranging this plan for the capture of burglars, I had carefully
considered its various processes, and had provided against all the
contingencies I could think of; therefore I was not now obliged to
deliberate what I should do. "Keep your eye on them," said I to David,
"and if one of them moves be ready for him. The first thing to do is to
tie them hand and foot."
I quickly lighted a lamp, and then took from another shelf of the closet
a large coil of strong cotton rope, which I had provided for such an
occasion as the present.
"Now," said I to David, "I will tie them while you stand by to knock
over any one of them who attempts to get up."
The instrument with which David was prepared to carry out my orders
was a formidable one. In the days of my youth my family was very
fond of "Maryland biscuit," which owes much of its delicacy to the fact
that before baking it is pounded and beaten by a piece of heavy iron.
Some people used one kind of a beater and some another, but we had
had made for the purpose a heavy iron club a little over a foot long,

large and heavy