Page:Frank Packard - The Adventures of Jimmie Dale.djvu/418



MINUTE passed—another. The automaticeautomatic [sic] at Jimmie Dale's hip, the muzzle just peeping over the table top, held a steady bead on the window. Came the footstep again—and then suddenly, a series of low, quick tappings upon the windowpane. The Tocsin's hand slipped away from his arm. Jimmie Dale's set face relaxed as he read the underground Morse, and he replaced his revolver slowly in his pocket.

"The Magpie!" said Jimmie Dale, in an undertone, "What's he want?"

"I don't know," she answered, in a whisper. "He never came here before. There's a back way out, Jimmie, if you"

"No," he said quickly. "We've enemies enough, without making one of the Magpie. He knows some one is here with you—our shadows were on the blind. Don't queer yourself. Let him in. I'll light the lamp."

He struck a match, as she ran from the room, and, lifting the hot lamp chimney with the edge of his ragged coat, lighted the lamp. He turned the wick down a little, shading and dimming the room—and then, as he flirted a bead of moisture from his forehead, whimsically stretched out his hand to watch it in the lamplight.

"That's bad, Jimmie," he muttered gravely to himself, as he noted an almost imperceptible tremour [sic]. "Got a start, didn't you! Under a bit of a strain, eh? Well"—grimly—"never mind! It looks as though the luck had turned. Makoff and Spider Jack!"