“Only,” said Gray, trembling exceedingly. “Do you call that easy?” “Yes; and if you don’t jump it, I must just ease you of all you have got in the money way on the roofs here, and leave you to your luck.” Gray looked despairingly around him. There was no hope for him. He stood in a drain between the two roofs, and he was as ignorant of the locality of his position as it was possible to be. With a deep groan he sunk grovelling at the feet of the man in whose power he was, and in imploring accents he said,— “Take me back, and let me run my chance of escape from the house you live in. Oh, take me back, for I am unequal to the fearful task you propose to me. I am, indeed—I should falter and fall—I know I should. Then an awful death would be my lot—a death of pain and horror. Oh, take me back—take me back!” “I’ll see you d—d first,” cried the man. “Come on, or I’ll cut your throat where you are. Come on, I say, you whining hound, come on, and look at the jump you are so scared at afore you know anything about it. Come on, I say. Oh, you won’t?” “Spare me—spare me!” The man took a large clasp knife from his pocket and opened it with his teeth. “I’ll go—I’ll go,” cried Gray. “Put up the knife—oh, God! Put up the knife—any death but that!” “Oh! Any death but that. Then it’s my opinion you’ve used such a little article yourself. Speak!” “I—I—have,” gasped Gray. “Take it out of my sight, I cannot bear to look upon it.” “Oh, you’re a tender-hearted piece of goods, certainly. Well, well, we all have our little failings. You’ve had a precious fright about this jump, and now I tell you it’s no jump at all.” “Indeed?” “No. These houses are so built that each story as they go up projects outwards, so that I’m cursed if you couldn’t shake a fist with a pal from some of the opposite attic windows. Come on, now, spooney, and you’ll curse yourself for a fool for being afraid of nothing.” “Is it indeed as you say,” muttered Gray, who still could not get over his great terror, although he well knew that hundreds of houses in narrow thoroughfares in London were so situated, that the attics had scarcely a couple of yards of open space between them. “Come on,” was the only reply, accompanied by a jerk of the rope, and presently one of the roofs ceased upon one side, and turning an angle, Gray, by the very dim light that was cast upwards from the street, saw that he was opposite a row of dirty, squalid-looking attic windows, from some of which lights were streaming, while others were obscured by old clothes hung up in the inside. A very few steps further now brought them to a part where, as the housebreaker had told Gray, the upper story of the house on the top of which they were, projected considerably across the narrow court; here Gray’s guide paused, and pointing to an attic immediately opposite, he said,— “There—that’s not much of a jump.” “No, no,” said Gray. “I could do that.”