ood care to jump back under the
shelter of the fireplace, pointed frantically to the marble stair and
bellowed out a command.

"Quick! Lend a hand, Wetherby!" shouted Dennis, seizing the end of a
large settee. "Hawke, Davis, Johnson, bring all the heavy stuff you can
find in that room behind us!" And as they dragged the settee across the
head of the staircase, volunteers rushed into the adjoining rooms,
staggering out again with chairs and tables to add to the barricade.

They were in the nick of time, for the enemy came boldly up the
staircase five abreast.

"Carry on, lads!" cried Dennis. "And you stay here with them, Wetherby.
I'll be back in a brace of shakes." And he ran round the gallery until
he came opposite to the machine-guns, which were pouring their hail of
death into the darkness of the garden.

"This has got to be stopped," he muttered grimly between his teeth. And,
groping in his bomb wallet, he took one out, withdrew the pin, and
pitched the missile to the other side of the hall.

It dropped where he had intended it should drop--immediately beneath the
machine-gun at the open door, one of the gun crew trying to pick it up
with a shout of warning to his comrades; but he was too late, and as his
fingers grasped it there was a terrific explosion.

The man who was firing fell backwards on to the marble floor, both his
legs blown off, and a circle of grey-green heaps surrounded him.

Before another man could spring into his place there was a heartening
yell from the darkness, and the Reedshires poured in, their bayonets
flashing in the candlelight.

Dennis had hoped to put the second gun out of action, but the thing was
too risky for his own men, who were smashing their way into the crowd of
Germans that filled the hall.

Besides, something closer at hand claimed his attention, for, in spite
of A Company's fire, the head of the storming party had reached that
slender barrier, and were already laying hands on the piled-up furniture
at the top of the staircase.

He had two bombs left, and, with a shout of warning, he flung them one
after another on to the crowded stair. The effect was appalling, for
they burst almost simultaneously, rending the gilded balustrade into a
hundred pieces, and pouring an avalanche of mangled bodies on to the
heads of the rest below.

Harry Hawke signalised his delight by hurling a heavy chair down the
staircase, and in a trice the barricade was torn aside, and A Company