n the roof as yet: and quick as thought the
young man lowered his pike and charged the figure.

With a shrill scream the man fell on his knees before him. "Mercy!"
cried a voice he knew. "Mercy! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

It was Louis Gentilis. Claude halted, looked at him in amazement,
spurned him with his foot. "Up, coward, and fight for your life then!"
he said. "Or others will kill you. How come you here?"

The lad still grovelled. "I was in the guard-room," he whimpered. "I had
come with a message--from the Syndic."

"The Syndic Blondel?"

"Yes! To remind the Captain that he was to go the rounds at eleven
exactly. It was late when I got there and they--oh, this dreadful
night--they broke in, and I, hid on the stairs."

"Well, you can hide no longer. You have got to fight now!" Claude
answered grimly, "There are no more stairs for any of us except to
heaven! I advise you to find something, and do your worst. Take the
winch-bar if you can find nothing else! And----"

He broke off. Marcadel, who had remained at the stairhead, was calling
to him in a voice that could no longer be resisted--a voice of despair.
Claude ran to him. He found him with his head in the stairway, but with
his pike shortened to strike. "They are coming!" he muttered over his
shoulder. "They are more than half-way up now. Be ready and keep your
eyes open. Be ready!" he continued after a pause. "They are nearly--here
now!" His breath began to come quickly; at last stepping back a pace and
bringing his point to the charge. "They are here!" he shouted. "On
guard!"

Claude stooped an inch lower, and with gleaming eyes, and feet set
warily apart, waited the onset; waited with suspended breath for the
charge that must come. He could hear the gasps of the wounded man who
lay on the uppermost step; and once close to him he caught a sound of
shuffling, moving feet, that sent his heart into his mouth. But seconds
passed, and more seconds, and glare as he might into the black mouth of
the staircase, from which the hood averted even the light of the stars,
he could make out nothing, no movement, no sign of life!

The suspense was growing intolerable. And all the time behind him the
alarm-bell was flinging "Doom! Doom!" down on the city, and a thousand
sounds of fear and strife clutched at his mind and strove to draw it
from the dark gap at which he waited, as a dog waits for a rat at the
mouth of its hole. His breath began to come quickly, his