Only a few minutes had elapsed after Harry’s arrival at the stairhead when he heard a well-known voice storming below. The enemy gave back for a moment, then Captain Aglionby pressed upward and engaged Harry hand to hand. Harry was sufficiently occupied in parrying the captain’s vengeful attack without the necessity of guarding against the pike that threatened every moment to impale him. This he could only turn aside; he had no time for a sweeping cut to sever its head. Fortunately for him the captain and his supporter impeded each other on the stairway. Yet Harry saw that the struggle could not last long, and fervently hoped that the man he had sent for missiles would return in time. The clang of weapons and the shouts of men rang through the stone-walled spaces. Aglionby had learnt from the released prisoners of the trick that had been played upon him, and his fury found expression in the violence of his onslaught and the venom of the curses he hurled upon his nimble-wristed opponent. Harry said never a word, but kept his eye steadily upon the captain, turning aside stroke and thrust. At length he heard a footstep behind him. A stone as large as a man’s head struck the wall immediately below him on his left. Narrowly missing Aglionby, it rebounded from the curved surface and struck the pikeman below him with a terrible thud. With the steadiness of an old campaigner the captain did not so much as wince, but continued his attack with still more savage energy. When, however, another stone hurtled down the stairway, maiming two other men below him, the rest of his followers turned tail and fled helter-skelter to the foot. A third stone grazed Aglionby’s arm; then, seeing himself deserted, he backed slowly down the stairs. The attack having been thus for a time repulsed, Harry left two men on the stairs with pistols ready charged and a supply of stones, and hurried across to the other staircase to find how things had gone there. It was with unutterable relief he saw that the assault of the enemy on the entrance to the keep had so far been beaten off by the combined fire from the doorway and the hurling of heavy blocks of stone from the top of the building. But the enemy were preparing another move. Finding that they could not force the obstacle, nor approach near enough to tear it down, they were about to try the effect of an explosion. A keg of powder had been rolled to the entrance by a lucky rush between the falling of two of the dreaded stones from above; now, hugging the wall so as to avoid the fire of the defenders, they were laying a train.