Now Bridge, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion that the boom of a cannon might not have disturbed, did that inexplicable thing which every one of us has done a hundred times in our lives.  He awakened, with a start, out of a sound sleep, though no disturbing noise had reached his ears.

Something impelled him to sit up in bed, and as he did so he could see through the window beside him into the yard at the rear of the building.  There in the moonlight he saw a man throwing a sack across the horn of a saddle.  He saw the man mount, and he saw him wheel his horse around about and ride away toward the north.  There seemed to Bridge nothing unusual about the man’s act, nor had there been any indication either of stealth or haste to arouse the American’s suspicions.  Bridge lay back again upon his pillows and sought to woo the slumber which the sudden awakening seemed to have banished for the remainder of the night.

And up the stairway to the second floor staggered Tony and Benito.  Their money was gone; but they had acquired something else which appeared much more difficult to carry and not so easily gotten rid of.

Tony held the key to their room.  It was the second room upon the right of the hall.  Tony remembered that very distinctly.  He had impressed it upon his mind before leaving the room earlier in the evening, for Tony had feared some such contingency as that which had befallen.

Tony fumbled with the handle of a door, and stabbed vainly at an elusive keyhole.

“Wait,” mumbled Benito.  “This is not the room.  It was the second door from the stairway.  This is the third.”

Tony lurched about and staggered back.  Tony reasoned:  “If that was the third door the next behind me must be the second, and on the right;” but Tony took not into consideration that he had reversed the direction of his erratic wobbling.  He lunged across the hall—­not because he wished to but because the spirits moved him.  He came in contact with a door.  “This, then, must be the second door,” he soliloquized, “and it is upon my right.  Ah, Benito, this is the room!”

Benito was skeptical.  He said as much; but Tony was obdurate.  Did he not know a second door when he saw one?  Was he, furthermore, not a grown man and therefore entirely capable of distinguishing between his left hand and his right?  Yes!  Tony was all of that, and more, so Tony inserted the key in the lock—­it would have turned any lock upon the second floor—­and, lo! the door swung inward upon its hinges.

“Ah!  Benito,” cried Tony.  “Did I not tell you so?  See!  This is our room, for the key opens the door.”

The room was dark.  Tony, carried forward by the weight of his head, which had long since grown unaccountably heavy, rushed his feet rapidly forward that he might keep them within a few inches of his center of equilibrium.

The distance which it took his feet to catch up with his head was equal to the distance between the doorway and the foot of the bed, and when Tony reached that spot, with Benito meandering after him, the latter, much to his astonishment, saw in the diffused moonlight which pervaded the room, the miraculous disappearance of his former enemy and erstwhile friend.  Then from the depths below came a wild scream and a heavy thud.