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Indignant blood rushed to Cobby's forehead. "We'll do the attacking!" he cried, running in, to return with a small Colt's.

"You keep out of it"—Rolls held his sleeve.

"This is intolerable!" Cobby said, with a florid forehead—"come on—rout 'em out."

But Rolls held him. "They are under cover—it's no chop fighting on ground chosen by the enemy. Wait—wary's the word. I reckon they'll be getting me in the end, but let that cost them something.... How would they have got into No. 7?"

Cobby explained that No. 7 had been unoccupied, and must now have been taken by, or for, one of the gang; but complaint at the Inn-office the next day would rid the Temple of them. Meantime the police ...

But these, bespoken over the telephone, failed to find anyone at No. 7; and Cobby, nervous for Rolls' life, would not let him go; so Rolls, for the first time, slept that night in the chambers.

That was the night of the 2nd August.

On the night of the 7th, Rolls was "got," as he would have said.

Near nine he was walking up Essex Street—his usual route for Cobby's—lonely at that hour, obscure at some points—when he was stabbed in the abdomen—mysteriously, for not a living thing did he see near him. Any nerve less trained in alertness than he, any adventurer less veteran in the trick and luck of escape, would doubtless have been laid dead at once; but something or other caused him suddenly to spring upward, and, instead of in the breast, he was hit below.