To this Charlie vouchsafed no answer, and the battering at the door was resumed. The threat to blow him up was evidently an empty one, as nothing of the sort was attempted, but presently there was a loud report, and a bullet came crashing through the woodwork, passing disagreeably near to the lad’s head. Through the opening that had thus been made, five other bullets followed one another in close succession, evidently fired not so much with an intention of hitting as of alarming him. Charlie crept on his hands and knees up to the door, and, when the discharge had ended, quietly raised himself up, and, placing the muzzle of his revolver in the aperture, pulled the trigger. There was a groan, a smothered curse, and a heavy fall, and immediately after the hammering was resumed more savagely than ever. Charlie reloaded the empty chamber of his revolver, and drew himself a little on one side. Just then his eye noticed that the top bolt was giving way. At the same moment the sound as of blows dealt by an axe upon the door made itself audible, and warned him that, with an instrument such as that, his assailants would soon be able to cut their way through to him. How slowly the hours, or, more properly speaking, minutes, dragged on. The hands of the clock seemed glued upon its face. The atmosphere of the room was stifling. “God help me,” murmured Charlie to himself: “the door wont stand much longer, and then there’s no help for it. They’d soon do for me. Oh! if I only had Uncle Seth or Bill Marston with me.” Alas! Charlie, you might as well have wanted the whole battalion of guards at your back; they whom you called were lying out in the storm and rain, sore stricken, and motionless! By this time the wreckers were evidently infuriated at the resistance they had met with, and redoubled their efforts upon the door, which slowly but surely was giving way. The axe was doing its work only too well, and already a huge piece of the wooden framework had fallen in. The barrier was now nearly broken down that protected him, and in a moment more the enemy would be upon him. In those few seconds that ensued the boy’s lips moved rapidly. With the shadow of death almost upon him, he had yet time to remember Him whose omnipotent arm could snatch him from out the jaws of death. Like the Puritan soldier of old, Charlie paused in the conflict to whisper a prayer. Then, resolute and undaunted, he prepared to meet the fate that he felt must inevitably fall upon him. He had not to wait long; there was a crash, and then a rush of dark forms through the doorway; he had but time to aim his revolver and pull the trigger, then some heavy body fell against him and brought him to the ground. The darkness had saved him, for the wreckers did not wait to look for him, but hurried upward to the light room to extinguish the lights.