lling up from
below, echoed hollowly about me, as the startled knaves rushed to their
weapons, and charged across the flags and up the staircase. I had space
for one desperate effort. Picking myself up, I seized the stool by two
of its legs and dashed it twice against the door, driving in the panel
I had before splintered. But that was all. The lock held, and I had no
time for a third blow. The men were already halfway up the stairs. In a
breath almost they would be upon me. I flung down the useless stool and
snatched up my sword, which lay unsheathed beside me. So far the matter
had gone against us, but it was time for a change of weapons now, and
the end was not yet. I sprang to the head of the stairs and stood there,
my arm by my side and my point resting on the floor, in such an attitude
of preparedness as I could compass at the moment.

For I had not been in the house all this time, as may well be supposed,
without deciding what I would do in case of surprise, and exactly where
I could best stand on the defensive. The flat bottom of the lamp which
hung outside the passage threw a deep shadow on the spot immediately
below it, while the light fell brightly on the steps beyond. Standing in
the shadow I could reach the edge of the stairs with my point, and swing
the blade freely, without fear of the balustrade; and here I posted
myself with a certain grim satisfaction as Fresnoy, with his three
comrades behind him, came bounding up the last flight.

They were four to one, but I laughed to see how, not abruptly, but
shamefacedly and by degrees, they came to a stand halfway up the flight,
and looked at me, measuring the steps and the advantage which the light
shining in their eyes gave me. Fresnoy's ugly face was rendered uglier
by a great strip of plaister which marked the place where the hilt of
my sword had struck him in our last encounter at Chize; and this and the
hatred he bore to me gave a peculiar malevolence to his look. The deaf
man Matthew, whose savage stolidity had more than once excited my anger
on our journey, came next to him, the two strangers whom I had seen in
the hall bringing up the rear. Of the four, these last seemed the most
anxious to come to blows, and had Fresnoy not barred the way with his
hand we should have crossed swords without parley.

'Halt, will you!' he cried, with an oath, thrusting one of them back.
And then to me he said, 'So, so, my friend! It is you, is it?'

I looked at him in