"Where is your father?" Philip exclaimed.

"He has gone down with the servants to hold the stairs."

"I will join him," Philip said. "Pierre will take care of you. He
knows what to do. We will follow you. Quick, for your own sake and
your father's."

"I cannot go and leave him."

"You will do him no good by staying, and delay may cost us all our
lives. You must go at once. If you do not, at the risk of your
displeasure, I must carry you."

"I will go," she said. "You saved me before, and I trust you."

"Trust Pierre as you would trust me," he said.

"Now, Pierre, take her hand and hurry her upstairs."

The clash of swords, mingled with shouts and oaths, were heard
below; and Philip, as he saw Pierre turn with Claire de Valecourt,
ran down. On the next landing the count, with four serving men, was
defending himself against the assault of a crowd of armed men, who
were pushing up the staircase. Others behind them held torches,
while some of those engaged in the fray held a torch in one hand,
and a sword in the other.

"Ah, is it you, Monsieur Fletcher?" the count said, as Philip
placed himself beside him, felling one of the foremost of the
assailants, as he did so, with a sweeping blow.

"It is I, count. My house is not attacked, and I have sent off your
daughter, in charge of my man, to gain it along the roofs. We will
follow them, as soon as we can beat back these villains."

"The king's troops must arrive shortly," the count said.

"The king's troops are here," Philip said. "This is done by his
orders, and all Paris is in arms. The Admiral has already been
murdered."

The count gave a cry of fury, and threw himself upon his
assailants. His companions did the same and, step by step, drove
them backward down the stairs.

There was a cry below of "Shoot them down!" and, a moment later,
three or four arquebuses flashed out from the hall. The count,
without a word, pitched forward among the soldiers; and two of the
retainers also fell. Then the crowd surged up again.

Philip fought desperately for a time. Another shot rang out, and he
felt a sudden smart across his cheek. He turned and bounded up the
stairs, paused a moment at the top, and discharged his two pistols
at the leaders of the assailants; pulled to the door of the count's
chamber, leaving the corridor in darkness, and then sprang up the
stairs. When he reached the door of the unused room by which they
had entered, he fastened it behind him