ew out and
grasped the wrist behind one of the pistols. He pulled fiercely and
irresistibly. An arm appeared, and a yell of pain signalized a
dislocated shoulder.

The weapon exploded harmlessly and fell to the floor. A living stop gap
now plugged the first hole made by the ax wielders, while the writhing
body of their comrade interfered with further operations.

Beaumanoir gave an extra wrench, and his victim howled most dolorously.
He slipped the bomb into his coat pocket.

"Pick up that revolver, Alec," he cried. "If it is still loaded it will
help us to hold the fort."

The King rushed forward, and butted against Beaumanoir in his haste.
Felix, whose skin was always sallow, became livid; but nothing happened,
and he snatched the bomb from its dangerous resting place. Then he burst
into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter which drowned for an instant a
new hubbub in the street.

Alec, hastily examining his prize, found that three chambers were
loaded. He was about to search for a crack in the door through which he
could fire at least one telling shot, when his ear caught the prancing
of horses on the paving stones.

Joan, thoroughly enlightened now as to their common peril, had behaved
with admirable coolness since Alec implored her not to stir from the
corner between door and window. She was sure they would all be killed,
and her lips moved in fervent prayer that death might be merciful in its
haste; but she was not afraid; that storm of tears had been succeeded by
a spiritual exaltation that rescued her from any ignoble panic. Yet her
senses were strained to a tension far more exhausting than the display
of emotion natural to one plunged without warning into the most horrible
of the many horrors of civil war, and she had heard, long before the
others, the onrush of cavalry and the stampede of the mob.

So, when her eyes met Alec's, and she saw that questioning look in his
face, she smiled at him with a radiant confidence that was astounding at
such a moment.

"Heaven has been good to us, dear," she said. "Your soldiers are here.
Your enemies are running away. Listen! they are fighting now on the
stairs. The unhappy men who raved for our lives will lose their own. Can
nothing be done to save them?"

He ran to the window. Those leaden blasts that had swept the room from
the first floors of the opposite houses had ceased, and not one
potvaliant marksman of them all was to be seen; but the street was full
of