I peered over the railing, while feverishly loading my guns, and saw that we were nearly done; for the aliens, sacrificing scores of their men in that wild attack, had almost cleared the staircase. Now they were pulling back the corpses and the last of the impeding furniture, and only our barricade at the top remained between them and our garrison of five. Any of them who were in good shape and in the least degree agile could clear this barrier with ease. I knew we were almost done. Now there occurred one of those queer, inexplicable pauses that come in the thick of the wildest battles, when the men of both sides seem to draw back an imperceptible inch or two, cease firing and yelling, suck in a deep swift breath, and tauten their muscles for a final foray or a last furious defense. The usurpers in the hall and on the stairs fell silent as though by prearrangement; while we humans, as it chanced, were all either loading or taking careful sights over our gun barrels. And in that comparative silence, broken only by the susurrus of heavy breathing, we all suddenly pricked up our ears and listened. The pause lengthened, by a sort of unspoken mutual agreement between the two parties. I looked at the Colonel, and he gestured imperiously toward the nearest room that faced on the drive. I flew into it, making for a window. Because there had come to us the sound of many automobiles, driven at high speed down the country lane that led to Exeter Castle. CHAPTER XXII Behind me I heard firing start up again, though not with any great volume. Below me as I leaned out of the window I saw a number of usurpers come running out of the broken door to see what was happening, then turn and go in again. My attention was not on them however, but on the drive, where the first of a line of motors had already pulled up and stopped. It was an old pre-war sedan. Its doors opened and six or seven men boiled out of it, staring at the castle and shouting as they moved. Men! Not were-folk, not monsters, but _men_! Had the sound of our fight carried to Exeter Parva? No, it could never produce these fifteen autos, decrepit though most of them were. Exeter Parva ran more to hay wagons. Then the riddle was solved. The second car, a battered Bentley, halted, and out of the front seat climbed a man I would have recognized on a dark night in a cellar. Dear old drunken, amoral, faithful Arold Smiff! Smiff to the rescue! "At 'em, Arold!" I whooped. "Inside, son!" He stared up at me, then waved joyfully. "General! Hoy, General! Gawddam!" He motioned fiercely to his henchmen. "Come on, you one-legged paralyzed barstids, earn your wack! Out arms and forrard!"