第47章

And now the whole neighbourhood seemed awakened.A dull-toned roar, as from some great gulf below, rolled up from the street, a medley of slamming windows, the rush of feet as people poured from the houses, cries, shouts, and yells--and high over all the shrill call of the police-patrol whistle--and the CRACK, CRACK, CRACK of the Skeeter's revolver shots--the Skeeter and his hellhounds for once self-appointed allies of the law!

Twice again Jimmie Dale fired--then crouching, running low, he zigzagged his way across the next roof.The bullets followed him--once more his pursuers dashed forward.And again Jimmie Dale, his face set like stone now, his breath coming in hard gasps, dodged behind a chimney, and with his gun checked their rush for the third time.

He glanced about him--and with a growing sense of disaster saw that two houses farther on the stretch of roof appeared to end.There would be a lane or a street there! And in another minute or two, if it were not already the case, others would be following the gunmen to the roof, and then he would be--he caught his breath suddenly in a queer little strangled cry of relief.Just back of him, a few yards away, his eyes made out what, in the darkness, seemed to be a glass skylight.

A dark form sped like a deeper shadow across the black in front of him, making for a chimney nearer by, closing in the range.Jimmie Dale fired--wide.Tight as was the corner he was in, little as was the mercy deserved at his hands, he could not, after all, bring himself to shoot--to kill.

A voice, the Skeeter's, bawled out raucously:

"Rush him all together--from different sides at once!"A backward leap! Jimmie Dale's boot was crashing glass and frame, stamping at it desperately, making a hole for his body through the skylight.A yell, a chorus of them, answered this--then the crunch of racing feet on the gravel roof.He emptied his revolver, sweeping the darkness with a semicircle of vicious flashes.

It seemed an hour--it was barely the fraction of a second, as he hung by his hands from the side of the skylight frame, his body swinging back and forth in the unknown blackness below.The skylight might be, probably was, directly over the stair well, and open clear to the basement of the house--but it was his only chance.

He swung his body well out, let go--and dropped.With the impetus he smashed against a wall, was flung back from it in a sort of rebound, and his hands closed, gripping fiercely, on banisters.It had been the stair well beyond any question of doubt, but his swing had sent him clear of it.

Above, they had not yet reached the skylight.Jimmie Dale snatched a precious moment to listen, as he rose, and found himself, apart from bruises, perhaps unhurt.There was commotion, too, in this house below, the alarm had extended and spread along the block--but the commotion was all in the FRONT of the house--the street was the lure.

Jimmie Dale started down the stairs, and in an instant he had gained the landing.In another he had slipped to the rear of the hall--somewhere there, from the hall itself, from one of the rear rooms, there must be an exit to the fire escape.To attempt to leave by the front way was certain capture.

They were yelling, shouting down now through the sky-light above, as Jimmie Dale softly raised the window sash at the rear of the hall.

The fire escape was there.Shouts from along the corridor, from the tenement dwellers who had been crowding their neighbours' rooms, craning their necks probably from the front windows, answered the shouts now from the roof and the skylight; doors opened; forms rushed out--but it was dark in the corridor, only a murky yellow at the upper end from the opened doors.

Jimmie Dale slipped through the window to the fire escape, and, working cautiously, silently, but with the speed of a trained athlete, made his way down.At the bottom he dropped from the iron platform into the back yard, ran for the fence and climbed over into a lane on the other side.

And then, as he ran, Jimmie Dale snatched the mask from his face and put it in his pocket.He was safe now.He swept the sweat drops from his forehead with the back of his hand--noticing them for the first time.It had been close--almost as close for him as it had been for old Luddy.And to-morrow the papers would execrate the Gray Seal! He smiled a little wanly.His breath was still coming hard.Presently they would scour the lane--when they found that their quarry was not in the house.What a racket they were making!

The whole district seemed roused like a swarm of angry bees.

He kept on along the lane--and dodged suddenly into a cross street where the two intersected.The clang of a bell dinned discordantly in his ears--a patrol wagon swept by him, racing for the scene of the disturbance--the riot call was out!

Again Jimmie Dale smiled wearily, passing his hand across his eyes.

"I guess," said Jimmie Dale, "I'm pretty near all in.And I guess it's time that Larry the Bat went--home."And a little later a figure turned from the Bowery and shambled down the cross street, a disreputable figure, with hands plunged deep in his pockets--and a shadow across the roadway suddenly shifted its position as the shambling figure slouched into the black alleyway and entered the tenement's side door.

And Larry the Bat smiled softly to himself--Kline's men were still on guard!