I leaned out. A white helmet and a pair of white legs flashed under a lamp and were gone. My window was no impossible height from the ground, but I did not stay to measure it. With the whistles still in my ears I lowered myself from the sill, dropped into a flower-bed, and gave chase to the helmet and the legs, myself barefooted and in pyjamahs. I saw my policeman vanish round a corner. I was after him like a deer, and even as I ran the position amused me. Chasing the police! He could not hear my naked feet; I gained on him splendidly, and had my hand on his shoulder before he knew me to exist. His face, as he stopped and turned it, feeling for his pistol, I shall remember all my life. "All right," I cried. "I'm not the man you're after. Hurry up! I'm coming along to see the fun." He swore in my teeth and rushed on. I followed in high excitement at his heels. All this time the first whistle was blowing through the night. We had reached the outskirts of the town, and were nearing the sound. At length, on turning a corner, we came upon another drill-trousered, pith-helmeted gentleman in the gateway of an empty house. "That's about enough of us," said he, pocketing his whistle. "I've got a man already on the lawn at the back. The house is empty, and he's in it like a rat in a trap. But who's this you've brought along with you, mate?" "A volunteer," said I. "You won't refuse to let me lend a hand if I get the chance?" "You'll get your brains blown out," replied the constable who had given the alarm, a sergeant as I saw now. "You'd best go home, though I won't say but what we want all the men we can get. The town's asleep--as usual. Can you face powder?" "I'll see," said I, laughing, for I scarcely suspected he was in earnest. "Who is it you're after? Somebody very dangerous?" "The Intercolonial bank-robber," replied the sergeant grimly. "What do you say now?" I said nothing at all. I know not what I had expected; but it was not this; and for the moment my own density concerned me as much as my fears. "Oh, that's all right," said the sergeant, with an intolerable sneer. "You cut away and send a grown man along when you see one!" My reply need not be recorded; suffice it that a moment later one of the men, who both carried firearms, had handed me his truncheon; and I was on my way to join the third constable on the lawn behind the house, while those two effected an entrance in front. II