It could not be far off one o'clock, when a very distinct sound, as of something stirring below stairs, reached his ears. Though by no means naturally timid, the young man's heart suddenly jumped as though taking a spring from a precipice. Possibly the noise might be occasioned by the rats taking advantage of this untimely hour of the night to make free with Mr. Veriquear's bones; or the cats outside were in pursuit of the aforesaid rats; or the wind was making itself merry somehow amongst the bottles; or the doors or the shutters were undergoing a process of agitation from the same cause. Whatever might originate the sound, however, it was now repeated more distinctly. There was evidently on the premises something alive as well as himself. Was it possible that he could have got into a wrong place, and that they meditated murdering him for the sake of his body? He thought of a pitch-plaster being suddenly stuck over his mouth by some unseen hand, as he lay there on his back in the dark. It was horrible, and the conceit aroused him to determination. He cautiously slipped out of bed, and, clad in nothing more than his stockings and shirt, groped his way blindly to the step-ladder, which he silently descended. Having reached the floor of the room below, he for the first time bethought himself that he had no weapon of defence, not even a common stick. But the great bone-heap was hard by, and from such armoury he soon possessed himself with the thigh-bone of a horse, which he contrived, without material disturbance, to draw out from amongst a choice collection of other similar relics. Again the noise which had alarmed him was repeated, and carried conviction to Colin's mind that Mr. Veriquear's precautions against robbers were more needful than he had previously believed; for that there were thieves about the premises he now no more doubted than he doubted his own existence. Determined to resist the knaves, and, grasping his bony cudgel with uncommon fervour, he placed himself in an offensive attitude, and stood prepared for he knew not what. Not the famous fighting gladiator of antiquity, nor yet the modest statue dubbed Achilles in Hyde Park, the admiration and delight of our astonished countrymen and women, looks more threatening and heroic than did Colin, as, clad in the simple but classic drapery of his under-garment, he brandished a tremendous bone, and defied his unseen foe. At that moment the fragmentary skull of some old charger, which lay on the windowsill at the farther end of the warehouse, seemed to become partially and very mysteriously illuminated, while the shadowy form of a man standing hard by became also indistinctly visible amidst the gloom. Colin maintained his standing in breathless silence, with his eyes steadily fixed upon the figure.