The Story of the Treasure Seekers

but you⁠—and then suddenly heard a noise like a chair, and a fire being poked, downstairs? Unless you have you will not be able to imagine at all what it feels like. It was not like in books; our hair did not stand on end at all, and we never said “Hist!” once, but our feet got very cold, though we were in blankets by the fire, and the insides of Oswald’s hands got warm and wet, and his nose was cold like a dog’s, and his ears were burning hot.

The girls said afterwards that they shivered with terror, and their teeth chattered, but we did not see or hear this at the time.

“Shall we open the window and call police?” said Dora; and then Oswald suddenly thought of something, and he breathed more freely and he said⁠—

“I know it’s not ghosts, and I don’t believe it’s robbers. I expect it’s a stray cat got in when the coals came this morning, and she’s been hiding in the cellar, and now she’s moving about. Let’s go down and see.”

The girls wouldn’t, of course; but I could see that they breathed more freely too. But Dicky said, “All right; I will if you will.”

H. O. said, “Do you think it’s really a cat?” So we said he had better stay with the girls. And of course after that we had to let him and Alice both come. Dora said if we took Noël down with his cold, she would scream “Fire!” and “Murder!” and she didn’t mind if the whole street heard.

So Noël agreed to be getting his clothes on, and the rest of us said we would go down and look for the cat.

Now Oswald said that about the cat, and it made it easier to go down, but in his inside he did not feel at all sure that it might not be robbers after all. Of course, we had often talked about robbers before, but it is very different when you sit in a room and listen and listen and listen; and Oswald felt somehow that it would be easier to go down and see what it was, than to wait, and listen, and wait, and wait, and listen, and wait, and then perhaps to hear It, whatever it was, come creeping slowly up the stairs as softly as It could with Its boots off, and the stairs creaking, towards the room where we were with the door open in case of Eliza coming back suddenly, and all dark on the landings. And then it would have been just as bad, and it would have lasted longer, and you would have known you were a coward besides. Dicky says he felt all these same things. Many people would say we were young heroes to go down as we did; so I have tried to explain, because no young hero wishes to have more credit than he deserves.

The landing gas was turned down low⁠—just a blue bead⁠—and we four went out very softly, wrapped in our blankets, and we stood on the top of the stairs a good long time before we began to go down. And we listened and listened till our ears buzzed.

And Oswald whispered to Dicky, and Dicky went into our room and fetched the large toy pistol that is a foot long, and that has the trigger broken, and I took it because I am the eldest; and I don’t think either of us thought it was the cat now. But Alice and H. O. did. Dicky got the poker out of Noël’s room, and told Dora it was to settle the cat with when we caught her.

Then Oswald whispered, “Let’s play at burglars; Dicky and I are armed to the teeth, we will go first. You keep a flight behind us, and be a reinforcement if we are attacked. Or you can retreat and defend the women and children in the fortress, if you’d rather.”

But they said they would be a reinforcement.

Oswald’s teeth chattered a little when he spoke. It was not with anything else except cold.

So Dicky and Oswald crept down, and when we got to the bottom of the stairs, we saw Father’s study door just ajar, and the crack of light. And Oswald was so pleased to see the light, knowing that burglars prefer the dark, or at any rate the dark lantern, that he felt really sure it was the cat after all, and then he thought it would be fun to make the others upstairs think it was really a robber. So he cocked the pistol⁠—you can cock it, but it doesn’t go off⁠—and he said, “Come on, Dick!” and he rushed at the study door and burst into the room, crying, “Surrender! you are discovered! Surrender, or I fire! Throw up your hands!”

And, as he finished saying it, he saw before him, standing on the study hearthrug, a Real Robber. There was no mistake about it. Oswald was sure it was a robber, because it had a screwdriver in its hands, and was standing near the cupboard door that H. O. broke the lock off; and there were gimlets and screws and things on the floor. There is nothing in that cupboard but old ledgers and magazines and the tool chest, but of course, a robber could not know that beforehand.

When Oswald saw that there really was a robber, and that he was so heavily armed with the screwdriver, he did not feel comfortable. But he kept the pistol pointed at the robber, and⁠—you will hardly believe it, but it is true⁠—the robber threw down the screwdriver clattering on the other tools, and he did throw up his hands, and said⁠—

“I surrender; don’t shoot me! How many of you are there?”

So Dicky said, “You are outnumbered. Are you armed?”

And the robber said, “No, not in the least.”

And Oswald said, still pointing the pistol, and feeling very strong and brave and as if he was in