Utterly possessed by his purpose, he wasted no time in a vain summons to surrender. The bell was still clanging overhead. He had taken precautions to prevent interference from the village, where the absence of so many men on the scene of the expected run favoured his design. But he was not to know but that the summons might draw armed men from every corner of the neighbourhood beyond the village, and his blow must be struck at once. Accordingly he made straight for the porch, and finding, as he had expected, that the door was fast closed, he put his pistol to the lock, and with one shot shattered it to splinters. But the door was held also by bolts and crossbars resting in staples, and further secured by a sideboard placed against it by Dick and Reuben, so that the breaking of the lock availed him nothing. Brought thus to a check, he stood for a few moments within the porch among his men to consider his next step. Meanwhile the Squire at the last moment had hurried to the top of the tower, with a double object: to observe the movements of the enemy more clearly than was possible through the loophole of a shuttered window, and to scan the surrounding country for any sign of assistance. No one was at present in sight. The air was heavy; the wind was off shore; and in all probability the sound of the bell had not even reached Nancarrow’s farm, the nearest house except the Parsonage, much less Sir Bevil Portharvan’s place, two miles farther away. He had given instructions before leaving Penwarden that the French were not to be fired on until they opened hostilities. With his wife in the building, he was determined not to draw upon himself by any premature act the reprisals of so formidable a gang of desperadoes. Now that the Frenchmen were within the porch, they were immune from musket fire, and he began to wonder whether his prohibition was not a mistake. As soon, however, as he heard the report of Delarousse’s pistol, with a rapidity that might have surprised those who had only known him of late years, the Squire seized a large block of loose stone that formed part of the half-ruined parapet, and toppled it over on to the roof of the porch below. It fell upon the tiles with a tremendous crash, scattering fragments in all directions, and bounded off on to the gravel path. Though none of the Frenchmen was struck by the stone itself, or even by the splinters of the tiles, it was sufficiently alarming to drive them from the porch, and they scurried instantly into the open. Two muskets flashed upon them from the loopholes above; one man was hit by a slug, and hopped away on one leg, assisted by his comrades. At the same moment the bell ceased to clang. Hearing the shots, Sam rushed down the stairs to take his part in the fray. The whole body of Frenchmen had now withdrawn out of range, and the Squire saw the little stout man, their leader, carefully scanning the building, with the object, no doubt, of finding a weak spot to attack.