"We've no rope-ladder, you know."
"Thanks to me," I groaned. "The whole thing's my fault?
"Nonsense, Bunny; there was no other way to run. But what about
these windows?"
His magnanimity took me by the throat; without a word I led him to
the one window looking inward upon sloping slates and level leads.
Often as a boy I had clambered over them, for the fearful fun of
risking life and limb, or the fascination of peering through the
great square skylight, down the well of the house into the hall
below. There were, however, several smaller skylights, for the
benefit of the top floor, through any one of which I thought we
might have made a dash. But at a glance I saw we were too late:
one of these skylights became a brilliant square before our eyes;
opened, and admitted a flushed face on flaming shoulders.
"I'll give them a fright!" said Raffles through his teeth. In
an instant he had plucked out his revolver, smashed the window
with its butt, and the slates with a bullet not a yard from the
protruding head. And that, I believe, was the only shot that
Raffles ever fired in his whole career as a midnight marauder.
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