New Nick Carter Weekly, No. 9 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee 4S > d — er 18 NEW NICK CARTER WEEKLY. stretched feet and stealthily made his way think that I should have fallen asleep at | toward T'rim’s room. CHAPTER, V. A GLIMPSE OF THE FOR. In Trim’s room the light from the -~ street lamps threw a bright beam upon the wali and ceiling, leaving the further corner, where the bed stood, in compara-'| tive darkness. The intruder paused at the threshold to get his bearings. Across the beam of light he could see the outlines of the bed and the bunched-up coverings showing _ that the bed was occupied. With his knife again raised he started foward, moving with his feet very close to the floor and eliding rather than walking. At his first stride his fest “caught against something and a chair fell“over directly in his path. It came down with a great clatter. © : _ Dobbin awoke instantly and sprung -from his chair. He made for Trim’s room with as much speed as if he had not been asleep at all. “‘God help us!’ he exclaimed: “I -knowed somethin’ would happen, an’ _ here I’ve been dozin’.”’ . There was dreadful fear in the old sail- cmb heart as he rushed across the room, _ but with it he felt a wild hope that the noise might have been caused by Trim himself. His hupe vanished the moment he reached the threshold. such a time!’ Before the old sailor had reached the. bed his cry was aswered by an exultant laugh, and the intruder, who had_ half risen after his fearful blow, swayed in the air, threw out his hands w ildly, and then — fell full length upon the floor. Dobbin was well nigh paralyzed with ‘astonishment. He was none the less ‘amazed when he heard ‘Trim’s voice shouting: . ‘ . ‘Nail him, Dobbin: Don’t let him get up!’’ In the dim light the old sailor saw the hilt of a knife sticking up from the bed- clothes and saw the form of a man writh- ing upon the floor. If it had not been for the darkness and his excitement he would also have seen Trim crawling as hastily as possible from under the bed. With a confused notion that T'rim’s shout must have been his death cry, Dob- bin fell upon the man on the floor in a well-meant effort to overpower him. The old sailor had plenty of muscular | strength, but little agility. -He could have pulled upon a line as well as many a younger man, and could have lifted as_ much dead weight as any other, but when it came to a wrestle his joints were too — stiff with age. ‘4 ‘The man on the floor proved to be exactly Dobbin’s opposite in this respect ; he not only had great physical strength, : ie: At thatinstant the intruder, who had but he was as supple as an eel. ? stumbled against the fallen chair, had} The sailor had hardly got his hands Bie ce his balance and was leaping upon the fellow before there was a com- - across the beam of slight in the middle of plete overturn. t - the room. . |. Dobbin felt himself seized around the 7 De bbin saw pe upraised hand aud: the waist and rolled completely over, and be- ing knife. *\fore he could scramble to his knees his ‘rim, lad, wake up!’ he aenasl Bs an antagonist had bounded across the room bat feng: as he, too too, dashed across| to a window. , | ne ; Thunderation !” cried Trim, who by he bed remained motion this -time had ot from “ar ‘the bed, ites See petent lek He ras oe 1 oe a ~ ro =,