He was annoyed because he had
made up his mind that as her protector he would be most negligent if
he went to sleep at all, with all those frightened varlets hovering
around ready to go to any extreme in order to save their skins.
Indeed, he left his door slightly ajar and laid his revolver on a
chair beside the bed, in which, with the aid of a lantern, he promised
himself to keep the vigil, stretched out in his daytime garb, prepared
for instant action, the while he enriched his mind by reading "The Man
of Property." But he fell to dreaming with his eyes wide open, and few
were the pages he turned.
Suddenly it was broad daylight and the wick in the lantern smelled
horribly. He popped from the bed, rubbed his eyes, and then dashed out
in the hall, expecting to come upon sanguinary evidence of a raid
during the night. To his amazement, there were no visible signs of an
attack upon the house. It seemed incredible that his defection had not
been attended by results too horrible to contemplate. By all the laws
of fate, she should now be either dead or at the very least,
frightfully mutilated. Something like that invariably happens when a
sentinel sleeps at his post, or an engineer drowses in his cab.
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