Then up the stairs ran the secretary and the
proprietor's wife, a kind amusing old woman. She had evidently seen this
sort of hold up before (it is called a "hold up," Mamma), for she called
out: "Don't be afraid, ladies, dears, they won't hurt you if you don't
yell"; and then she bolted down the stairs again like a rabbit to get
help, while my brute turned his attention from me for a minute to fire
after her. She had got past the turn of the stairs, but he caught the
secretary in the ankle, and he fell with a groan on the floor.
It was an unpleasant situation, wasn't it, Mamma, six women in
nightgowns with their hands above their heads, Randolph an object of
misery with his pink silk pyjamas torn, and the secretary lying in a
pool of blood, unconscious, by the stairs, while two wretches covered
the whole party with their revolvers!
It seemed an eternity before the men had finished ransacking the rooms,
swearing terribly at finding so little there; and then they came out and
made for the door at the end, which had an outside staircase leading
on to the mountain. At last a noise of voices like distant thunder was
heard getting nearer and nearer, and before they could kick that door
down and escape, Nelson and Tom dashed up the stairs, their revolvers in
their hands; and the last coherent thing I remember was seeing Nelson
take instant aim and shoot the man who was holding the gun to my head as
he had his finger on the trigger to shoot me; and if Nelson had given
him a second more to aim he would have blown my brains out; but being so
quick, Nelson's bullet must have reached him as he fired at me, for his
shot went off through the roof.
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