arrion has a loaded musket, and would shoot at you if
there were a thousand of you."

But Zudar did not even require the help of a loaded musket, he would
have rushed out among them with his bare fists, but the kitchen door was
barred and bolted, and barricaded with all sort of heavy obstacles.

Panting hard, Zudar rushed back into his room, sought out a heavy axe,
and rushed back to the kitchen door. At the first vigorous strokes the
joints of the door began to crack.

"Quick! throw the bundles of faggots in front of the door!" shrieked the
savage virago outside, "and set it alight at once! Don't you see the
door is giving way?"

The courtyard was crowded with a mob of louts, armed with scythes and
pitchforks, among whom stood Dame Zudar, with dishevelled hair and
flaming eyes, like the very Fury of Revolt.

The peasant host quickly got together a heap of faggots, and carrying
them to the door, literally buried it beneath them.

"And now a match! Let him burn in his own den!"

It was Zudar's own wife who thus exclaimed.

The boor who tried to kindle the fire was such a long time about it,
owing to the damp tinder, that Dame Zudar impatiently snatched the flint
and steel out of his hands, struck away at it till she had ignited the
tinder, then thrust it with her own hand in the midst of the straw
surrounding the faggots, fanned it with her apron till it burst into a
vivid flame, and then ran across the courtyard to the other side of the
faggot heap to set it alight there also. Her wild and tangled tresses
fluttered in the tempest.

"My father, oh! my good father!" wailed a scarce audible voice from the
bottom of the reed-covered waggon to which the headsman's horses had
been attached.

The dry bunches of twigs and fire-wood suddenly began spluttering and
crackling, and burst into a flame. The windows of the house were also
crammed full with straw and sticks, and each heap of combustibles was
ignited one by one. Soon something very like a big bonfire was blazing
merrily all round the house.

The man imprisoned within there thundered away at the door with all his
might, and at each terrible blow the besiegers laughed derisively.

"Bravo, fire away! Frizzle away in your own den, old Bruin!"

* * * * *

The thuds against the door had ceased; the flames were already leaping
above the roof of the house; the whole building was burning with a
steady glare, casting forth showers of