“No use,” he remarked, quietly.  “There are three more waiting at the foot.”  He looked out to find that the officers had searched the crowd and were turning towards the front stairs, thus cutting off his retreat.  There were but two ways down from the gallery and no outside windows from which to leap.  As they had made no armed display, the presence of the officers had not interrupted the dance.

Glenister drew his revolver, while into his eyes came the dancing glitter that Helen had seen before, cold as the glint of winter sunlight.

“No, not that—­for God’s sake!” she shuddered, clasping his arm.

“I must for your sake, or they’ll find you here, and that’s worse than ruin.  I’ll fight it out in the corridors so that you can escape in the confusion.  Wait till the firing stops and the crowd gathers.”  His hand was on the knob when she tore it loose, whispering hoarsely: 

“They’ll kill you.  Wait!  There’s a better way.  Jump.”  She dragged him to the front of the box and pulled aside the curtains.  “It isn’t high and they won’t see you till it’s too late.  Then you can run through the crowd.”  He grasped her idea, and, slipping his weapon back into its holster, laid hold of the ledge before him and lowered himself down over the dancers.  He swung out unhesitatingly, and almost before he had been observed had dropped into their midst.  The gallery was but twice the height of a man’s head from the floor, so he landed on his feet and had drawn his Colts even while the men at the stairs were shouting at him to halt.

At sight of the naked weapons there was confusion, wherein the commands of the deputies mingled with the shrieks of the women, the crash of overturned chairs, and the sound of tramping feet, as the crowd divided before Glenister and swept back against the wall in the same ominous way that a crowd in the street had once divided on the morning of Helen’s arrival.  The trombone player, who had sunk low in his chair with closed eyes, looked out suddenly at the disturbance, and his alarm was blown through the horn in a startled squawk.  A large woman whimpered, “Don’t shoot,” and thrust her palms to her ears, closing her eyes tightly.

Glenister covered the deputies, from whose vicinity the by-standers surged as though from the presence of lepers.

“Hands up!” he cried, sharply, and they froze into motionless attitudes, one poised on the lowest step of the stairs, the other a pace forward.  Voorhees appeared at the head of the flight and rushed down a few steps only to come abruptly into range and to assume a like rigidity, for the young man’s aim shifted to him.

“I have a warrant for you,” the officer cried, his voice loud in the hush.

“Keep it,” said Glenister, showing his teeth in a smile in which there was no mirth.  He backed diagonally across the hall, his boot-heels clicking in the silence, his eyes shifting rapidly up and down the stairs where the danger lay.