He took the lead, walking forward calmly, and in a low tone pointing out the individual that each should attack. The quiet orderliness of the movement, or perhaps it was a sense of impending defeat, roused Carey to a greater fury than he had yet shown. As the invaders broke line for the assault, he leaped at the Governor and swung at him viciously with a rifle. The Governor sprang aside and the gun slipped from Carey's hands and clattered against the barricade. Angered by his failure, and finding his men yielding, Carey abruptly changed his tactics. He ran back beyond the roaring fire and caught up another rifle. Leary began circling round the flames in the hope of grappling with him, but he was too late. Without taking time for aim, Carey leveled the weapon and fired through the flames. Archie, struggling with a big woodsman, beat him down and turned as the shot rang out. The Governor was standing apart, oddly and strangely alone it seemed to Archie, and he was an eternity falling. He raised himself slightly, carrying his rifle high above his head, and his face was uplifted as though in that supreme moment he invoked the stars of his dreams. Then he pitched forward and lay very still. Carey's shot seemed to have broken the tacit truce against a resort to arms. There was a sharp fusillade, followed by a scramble as the belligerents sought cover. The men who had been left outside now leaped over the barricade. The appearance of reenforcements either frightened Carey or the success of his shot had awakened a new rage in his crazed mind, for he emptied his rifle, firing wildly as he danced with fantastic step toward the prone figure of the Governor. Archie, his heart a dead weight in his breast, resolved that the Governor's last charge to him should be kept. He saw Congdon beyond the light of the conflagration taking aim at Carey with careful calculation. Carey must not be killed; no matter what the death toll might be, the man responsible for it must be taken alive. He raised his hand as a signal to Congdon not to fire, and waited, hanging back in the shadows, watching the wild gyrations of the madman. Carey seemed now to be oblivious to everything that was happening about him as he continued his dance of triumph. In the midst of this weird performance, suddenly widening the circumference of his operations, he stumbled. As he reeled Archie rushed in, gripping his throat and falling upon him. The breath went out of the man as he struck the ground, and Archie jumped up and left him to Congdon and Leary. Perky was kneeling beside the Governor tearing open his shirt which was already crimson from a fast-flowing wound. "He's hurt bad; it's the end of him!" muttered the old man helplessly. "There's nothing to be done here," said Archie, tears coursing down his cheeks as he felt the Governor's faltering pulse. "We must cross to Huddleston as quickly as possible."