The command was only just in time. They were but a few yards from the barricade when there came a roar like thunder, followed by a second as Harry’s own mine was exploded, and through the swirling smoke fierce and derisive cheers. Holding his breath and stooping low, Harry rushed back to see what damage was done. The barricade had disappeared; the archway was in ruins; and the enemy were flinging another bridge across the fosse to replace that destroyed by the explosion. So far as the defence of the gateway was concerned, Harry saw that the game was up. At the best he could but delay the enemy for a few minutes, and even then he would risk having his men cut off from the keep. Recalling the man from the farther tower, he collected his little band, ordered them to fire one volley into the advancing ranks, and then withdrew through the barricaded doorway into his last defence. At that moment he heard the dull sound of a shot above. Buckley must be beset! Giving Max orders to hold the courtyard entrance, and sending a man to hurl down stones from the roof upon the enemy crowding below, he took two men with him to assist Buckley, whom he found hard pressed near the head of the other stairway. Sword in hand, he was holding the narrow winding passage against the big red-sashed Croatian, who was making a desperate thrust at him with a half-pike, the head of which had been severed by the Englishman’s blade. "Steady, Buckley! I am here!" shouted Harry. He drew his pistol from his belt, slipped under Buckley’s arm, and just as the Croatian hurled himself up the last step intervening between himself and his foe, Harry fired point-blank at his heart, and he fell back upon his comrades. The narrow stairway was choked with men; the din of their shouts echoed and re-echoed from the winding walls, and above all the uproar Harry distinguished the tones of Aglionby, yelling to his men to make way for him to pass. When Fanshawe left the castle he walked steadily on for some hours, making a wide circuit round the enemy’s position, guiding himself by the north star. His progress was difficult over the hills in the darkness. He had to scale bluffs, to creep up rocks, to spring across ravines, to wade through swamps at the risk of being engulfed, to skirt patches of wood—though in one case, finding that he was being taken too far out of his course, he plunged boldly into a copse, trusting to his good fortune to bring him safely out at the other side. Thus delayed, it was long before he felt sure that he was safe.