That
villainous upper-cut! My head still sang and throbbed, as I
seated myself on one of the aforesaid parapets, and buried it in
my hot hands. Nor was the night one to dispel a headache; there
was distinct thunder in the air. Thus I sat in a heap, and
brooded over my misadventure, a pretty figure of a subordinate
villain, until the step came for which I waited; and it never
struck me that it came from the wrong direction.
"You have been quick," said I, simply.
"Yes," hissed a voice I recognized; "and you've got to be quicker
still! Here, out with your wrists; no, one at a time; and if you
utter a syllable you're a dead man."
It was Lord Ernest Belville; his close-cropped, iron-gray
moustache gleamed through the darkness, drawn up over his set
teeth. In his hand glittered a pair of handcuffs, and before I
knew it one had snapped its jaws about my right wrist.
"Now come this way," said Lord Ernest, showing me a revolver
also, "and wait for your friend. And, recollect, a single
syllable of warning will be your death!"
With that the ruffian led me to the very bridge I had just
crossed at Raffles's heels, and handcuffed me to the iron rail
midway across the chasm. It no longer felt warm to my touch, but
icy as the blood in all my veins.
So this high-born hypocrite had beaten us at our game and his,
and Raffles had met his match at last! That was the most
intolerable thought, that Raffles should be down in the flat on
my account, and that I could not warn him of his impending fate;
for how was it possible without making such an outcry as should
bring the mansions about our ears? And there I shivered on that
wretched plank, chained like Andromeda to the rock, with a black
infinity above and below; and before my eyes, now grown familiar
with the peculiar darkness, stood Lord Ernest Belville, waiting
for Raffles to emerge with full hands and unsuspecting heart!
Taken so horribly unawares, even Raffles must fall an easy prey
to a desperado in resource and courage scarcely second to
himself, but one whom he had fatally underrated from the
beginning.
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