I had grown used to the silent terrors of my house. The weird fancies that clung around the gloomy halls and dark doorways still whispered their threatening tales of danger and death. The air was still peopled with the ghosts of forgotten crimes, and the tragedy of the alley that had changed my life was heavy on the place. But habit, and the confidence that had come to me with the presence of my guards, had made it a tolerable spot in which to live. But as we stumbled up the stairway the apprehensions of Dicky Nahl came strong upon me, and I looked ahead to the murky halls, and glanced at every doorway, as though I expected an ambush. Porter and Barkhouse marched stolidly along, showing little disposition to talk. “What's that?” I exclaimed, stopping to listen. “What was it?” asked Barkhouse, as we stopped on the upper landing and gazed into the obscurity. “I thought I heard a noise,” said I. “Who's there?” “It was a rat,” said Porter. “I've heard 'em out here of nights.” “Well, just light that other gas-jet,” I said. “It will help to make things pleasant in case of accidents.” The doors came out of the darkness as the second jet blazed up, but nothing else was to be seen. Suddenly there was a scramble, and something sprang up before my door. Porter and I raised the revolvers that were ready in our hands, but Barkhouse sprang past us, and in an instant had closed with the figure and held it in his arms. There was a volley of curses, oaths mingled with sounds that reminded me of nothing so much as a spitting cat, and a familiar voice screamed in almost inarticulate rage: “Let me go, damn ye, or I'll knife ye!” “Good heavens!” I cried. “Let her go, Barkhouse. It's Mother Borton.” Mother Borton freed herself with a vicious shake, and called down the wrath of Heaven and hell on the stalwart guard. “You're the black-hearted spawn of the sewer rats, to take a respectable woman like a bag of meal,” cried Mother Borton indignantly, with a fresh string of oaths. “It's fire and brimstone you'll be tasting yet, and you'd 'a' been there before now, you miserable gutter-picker, if it wasn't for me. And this is the thanks I git from ye!” “I'll apologize for his display of gallantry,” said I banteringly. “I've always told him that he was too fond of the ladies.” I was mistaken in judging that this tone would be the most effective to restore her to good humor. Mother Borton turned on me furiously. “Oh, it's you that would set him on a poor woman as comes to do you a service. I was as wide-awake as any of ye. I never closed my eyes a wink, and you has to come a-sneakin' up and settin' your dogs on me.” Mother Borton again drew on an apparently inexhaustible vocabulary of oaths. “Oh, you're as bad as him,” she shouted, “and I reckon you'd be worse if you knowed how.” And she spat out more curses, and shook her fist in impotent but verbose rage.