ower again, as a measure of
precaution, but it was certain that hours would elapse before an attack
could be made. The peasants, indeed, secure of their prey, evinced
no hurry to commence the attack, but spent the night in shouting and
singing round their fires, occasionally yelling threats of the fate
which awaited them against the defenders of the tower.

Towards daylight Malcolm commenced his preparations for defence. The
door was taken off its hinges and was laid on the stone stairs. These
were but two feet wide, the door itself being some three inches less.
The rope was fastened round its upper end to prevent it from sliding
down.

"I wish we had some grease to pour over it," Malcolm said, "but dry as
it is it will be next to impossible for anyone to walk up that sharp
incline, and we four should be able to hold it against the peasants till
doomsday."

It was not until broad daylight that the peasants prepared for the
attack. So long as the operation had been a distant one it had seemed
easy enough, but as in a confused mass they approached the open doorway
they realized that to ascend the narrow staircase, defended at the top
by desperate men, was an enterprise of no common danger, and that the
work which they had regarded as finished was in fact scarcely begun.

The greater part then hung back, but a band of men, who by their
blackened garments and swarthy faces Malcolm judged to be charcoal
burners, armed with heavy axes, advanced to the front, and with an air
of dogged resolution approached the door. The defenders gave no sign of
their presence, no pistol flashed out from window or loophole.

Striding through the still hot ashes the leader of the woodmen passed
through the doorway and advanced up the stairs. These ran in short
straight flights round the tower, lighted by narrow loopholes. No
resistance was encountered until he reached the last turning, where
a broader glare of light came from the open doorway, where two of the
soldiers, pike in hand, stood ready to repel them. With a shout to his
followers to come on, the peasant sprang forward. He ascended three
steps, and then, as he placed his foot upon the sharply inclined
plane of the door, which he had not noticed, he stumbled forward. His
companions, supposing he had been pierced with a spear, pressed on after
him, but each fell when they trod upon the door until a heap of men
cumbered the stair. These were not unharmed, for with their long pikes
t