ng door-post. There was a scream
of anguish. "Cut," whispered Denys eagerly, and Gerard's uplifted sword
descended and severed the wrist with two swift blows. A body sank down
moaning outside.

The hand remained inside, immovable, with blood trickling from it down
the wall. The fierce bolt, slightly barbed, had gone through it and deep
into the real door-post.

"Two," said Denys, with terrible cynicism.

He strung his crossbow, and kneeled behind his cover again.

"The next will be the Abbot."

The wounded man moved, and presently crawled down to his companions on
the stairs, and the kitchen door was shut.

There nothing was heard now but low muttering. The last incident had
revealed the mortal character of the weapons used by the besieged.

"I begin to think the Abbot's stomach is not so great as his body," said
Denys.

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the following events
happened all in a couple of seconds. The kitchen door was opened
roughly, a heavy but active man darted up the stairs without any manner
of disguise, and a single ponderous blow sent the door not only off its
hinges, but right across the room on to Denys's fortification, which it
struck so rudely as nearly to lay him flat. And in the doorway stood a
colossus with a glittering axe.

He saw the dead man with the moon's blue light on half his face, and the
red light on the other half and inside his chapfallen jaws: he stared,
his arms fell, his knees knocked together, and he crouched with terror.

"LA MORT!" he cried, in tones of terror, and turned and fled. In which
act Denys started up and shot him through both jaws. He sprang with one
bound into the kitchen, and there leaned on his axe, spitting blood and
teeth and curses.

Denys strung his bow and put his hand into his breast.

He drew it out dismayed.

"My last bolt is gone," he groaned.

"But we have our swords, and you have slain the giant."

"No, Gerard," said Denys gravely, "I have not. And the worst is I have
wounded him. Fool! to shoot at a retreating lion. He had never faced thy
handiwork again, but for my meddling."

"Ha! to your guard! I hear them open the door."

Then Denys, depressed by the one error he had committed in all this
fearful night, felt convinced his last hour had come. He drew his sword,
but like one doomed. But what is this? a red light flickers on the
ceiling. Gerard flew to the window and looked out. There were men with
torches, and brea