The man went to the window behind the commissary, opened one of its leaves, and blew three shrill blasts. While this was going on, the four sat helplessly in the same position in which Jack had surprised them. The lieutenant’s pink cheeks had paled; the commissary’s rubicund features had become like mottled soap; the captain was red with sottish indignation; Miguel had never moved. Jack could only see his back. "With your permission, messieurs," Jack went on, "this good man will make a little collection. Hombre, relieve that gentleman at the head of the table of his sword and pistol. No, no; not this side of him. You may get hurt if you come between us, and we cannot spare a good Spaniard—can we, Don Miguel? Go round him. That’s right. Now bring the weapons and put them on the floor behind me. So. Now, go round in the same way and get the next gentleman’s arms." Before the man reached the lieutenant, a confused hubbub came into the room from the front of the house through the open window—the clash of steel, the report of firearms. Almost at the same moment loud sounds of the same kind came from the direction of the patio. The old servant hesitated, stood still, his fingers working nervously. "Go on, hombre," said Jack sternly, his pistol still pointed. While the uproar on both sides gathered strength, the Spaniard tottered towards the lieutenant, and with shaking hands disengaged his sword and pistol, which he placed alongside of the commissary’s on the floor behind Jack. He was just repeating the process of disarmament with the captain when loud shouts were heard at the door, followed by heavy blows from the butts of muskets. Apparently the French troopers had been driven across the patio, and were seeking their officers in the inner room. Jack did not move a muscle, but he devoutly hoped that the door would stand the strain; otherwise the window was his only chance, though in any case he could not desert the old man. The noise outside provided a strange contrast to the quietness within. Almost silently the Spaniard had disarmed three of the four feasters. It was now Miguel’s turn. In advancing towards him the old man, alarmed by the tremendous thunderings on the door behind him, and by a bullet that crashed through one of the panels, incautiously stepped between Miguel and Jack. In an instant, with an extraordinary muscular effort for so slightly built a man—an effort nerved doubtless by the knowledge of what his fate would be if he fell into the hands of his countrymen,—Miguel seized the man by the middle, and, swinging him round so as to make of him a screen between himself and Jack, dashed towards a curtain of arras that apparently overhung a doorway on the opposite side of the room. At the same moment a number of Spaniards, headed by Antonio, came headlong through the open window.