But I did not pass through it. For, instead of darkness, I found myself confronted by a blaze of light. In that blaze of light stood three waiting and expectant figures. What most disturbed me was the fact that the man called Orrie held in his hand a revolver that seemed the size of a toy-cannon. This was leveled directly at my blinking eyes. The other youth, in cerise pajamas with orange colored frogs and a dressing-gown tied at the waist with a silk girdle, stood just behind him, holding an extremely wicked-looking Savage of the magazine make. Behind this youth again, close by the newel-post, stood the girl in blue, all the sleepiness gone out of her face. The sight of that wide-eyed and eager trio irritated me beyond words. There was no longer any thrill in the thing. I had gone through too much; I could not react to this newer emergency. I kept wondering if the idiot with the Colt realized just how delicate a pressure would operate the trigger on which I could see his finger shaking. But that shake, it was plain, was more from excitement than fear. "We've got him!" cried the youth in the cerise pajamas. I might have been a somewhat obstinate black bass wheedled into his landing-net, from the way he spoke. "Don't move!" commanded the older of the two, wrinkling his brow into a frown of youthful determination. "Don't you dare move one inch, or I'll put a hole through you." I had no intention of moving. "Watch his hands," prompted the younger man. "He ought to put 'em up." "Yes, Orrie, he ought to put them up," echoed the girl by the newel-post. She reminded me, with her delicate whites and pinks and blues, of the cabinet of porcelain at which I had so recently stared. "Back up through the door," cried Orrie. "Come on--back up!" I wearily obeyed this somewhat equine order. Then he commanded me to hold my hands above my head. I did so without hesitation; I had no wish to argue while that Colt was staring me in the eyes. They followed me, Indian file, into the room. It was the girl who closed the door as Orrie switched on the lights. She stood with her back to it, studying my face. I could see that I rather interested them all. But in that interest I detected no touch of either friendliness or respect. The only one I seemed to mystify was the girl at the door. "Have you anything to say?" demanded Orrie, squaring his shoulders. "Yes, I have a great deal to say," I told him. "But I prefer saying it to you alone." I could see his movement of disdain. "Will you listen to that!" commented the youth in the cerise pajamas. "And if you will be so good as to stop poking that pistol in my face," I continued with some heat, "and then send these children out of the room, I shall say what I have to, and do it very briefly!" "Children!" came in an indignant gasp from the girl at the door. "We'll stick by you, old man," assured the youthful hero in cerise, with his heels well apart.