"No. I have not asked you to spare my life. Not in return for that, but as some mitigation of my past. But, come, we trifle time," and he picked up his cross-belt, and, adjusting it, drew forth his pistols and primed and loaded them. "You have had your opportunity of slaying me--that opportunity is past. Henceforth, except for the wrong I did you, we are equal. Now, madam," he said, turning to me, "I am at your disposal and ready to help you defend your house should it be surrounded. You received me as a gentleman when I first came to you";--he put a bitter emphasis on the word "gentleman";--"as a gentleman I will do my best to repay your courtesy." "If you are a villain you are a bold one," said Lord St. Amande. "Ill luck take you for not being a better man." "It would be best," said O'Rourke to me, ignoring his lordship, "to go call up the convicts, I think. There is one down there who, if he has not forgotten me--the man Peter Buck of whom you spoke once--will stand side by side with me whatever may happen. I knew him well in the past. And then, madam, the windows should be shuttered----" "By your leave, sir," Lord St. Amande exclaimed now, "I purpose to undertake the defence of this house for----" But, ere he could finish his speech, from Mary there came the most agonising scream while, with her eyes almost starting from her head she shrunk back to Mr. Kinchella, and, pointing with her hand to the lower part of the window, she shrieked, "Look! Look!" And following the direction she indicated we saw the cause of her horror. For there, its almond-shaped eyelids half closed, though still enough open to show the glittering eyes within, its face hideously painted with white and red streaks, and its hair twisted into a knot on the top of its head, we saw the form of a savage crouched down on the porch and peering into the saloon. In a moment O'Rourke had seen it, too, as she screamed and pointed, for, an instant later, there rang through the room the report of one of the pistols he had loaded, and, when the smoke cleared away, we saw the savage writhing on the porch while from his head gushed a great stream of blood. "A fair hit," called out O'Rourke. "A fair hit. Od's bobs, my right hand has not forgot its cunning after all." CHAPTER XVIII BESIEGED Three hours later our house, barricaded in every way possible, was in a state of siege and around it lay a band of Shawnee and Doeg Indians, some hundreds strong.