knees shook. He
heard his companion gasp--human nerves could stand it no longer. And
then, just as he felt that, come what might, he must plunge his pike
into the darkness, and settle the question, the shuffling sound came
anew and steadied him, and he set his teeth and waited--waited still.

But nothing happened, nothing moved. Again the seconds, almost the
minutes passed, and the deep note of the alarm-bell swelled louder and
heavier, filling all the air, all the night, all the world, with its
iron tongue--setting the tower reeling, the head swimming. In spite of
himself, in spite of the fact that he knew his life hung on his
vigilance, his thoughts wandered; wandered to Anne, alone and
defenceless in that hell below him, from which such wild sounds were
beginning to rise; to his own fate if he and Marcadel got the worst; to
the advantage a light properly shaded would have given them, had they
had it. But, alas, they had no light.

And then, while he thought of that, the world was all light. A sheet of
flame burst from the hood, dazzled, blinded, scorched him; a crashing
report filled his ears; he recoiled. The ball had missed him, had gone
between him and Marcadel and struck neither. But for a moment in pure
amazement, he stood gaping.

That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, or
even with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered the
uppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over it
as he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, less
hasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way for
others.

Before either could rise all was over. Claude brought down his pike on
the head of the first to issue, and laid him lifeless on the leads. The
guard, who was a better man at a pinch than in the anticipation of it,
drove the other back--as he tried to rise--with a wound in the face.
Then with a yell, assured that in the narrow stairhead the enemy could
not use their weapons, the two charged their pikes into the obscurity,
and thrust and thrust, and thrust again, in the cruelty of rage and
fear.

What they struck, or where they struck, they could not see; but their
ears told them that they did not strike in vain. A shrill scream and the
gurgling cry of a dying man proved it, and the wild struggle that ensued
on the stairs; where the uppermost, weighed down by the fallen men,
turned in a panic on those below and fought with t