That moment had been his last had the defence lain with him only, or even with him and Marcadel. It was the senseless form that cumbered the uppermost step which saved them. The man who had fired tripped over it as he sprang out. He fell his length on the roof. The next man, less hasty or less brave, sank down on the obstacle, and blocked the way for others. Before either could rise all was over. Claude brought down his pike on the head of the first to issue, and laid him lifeless on the leads. The guard, who was a better man at a pinch than in the anticipation of it, drove the other back--as he tried to rise--with a wound in the face. Then with a yell, assured that in the narrow stairhead the enemy could not use their weapons, the two charged their pikes into the obscurity, and thrust and thrust, and thrust again, in the cruelty of rage and fear. What they struck, or where they struck, they could not see; but their ears told them that they did not strike in vain. A shrill scream and the gurgling cry of a dying man proved it, and the wild struggle that ensued on the stairs; where the uppermost, weighed down by the fallen men, turned in a panic on those below and fought with them to force them to descend. Claude shuddered as he listened, as he waited, his pike still levelled; shuddered at the pitiful groaning that issued from the blackness, shuddered at the blows he had struck, and the scream that still echoed in his ears. He had not trembled when he fought, but he trembled at the thought of it. "They are beaten," he muttered huskily. "Ay, they are beaten!" Marcadel--he who had trembled before the fight--answered with exultation. "You were right. We wanted no more men! But it was near. If this rogue had not tripped our throats would have suffered." "He was a brave man," Claude answered, leaning heavily on his pike. He needed its support. Marcadel knelt down and felt the man over. "Ay," he said, "he was, to give the devil his due! And that reminds me. We've a skulker here who has escaped so far. He shall play his part now. We must have their arms, but it is dirty work groping in the dark for them; and maybe life enough in one of them to drive a dagger between one's ribs. He shall do it. Where is he?" Claude was feeling the reaction which ensues upon intense excitement. He did not answer. Nor did he interfere when Marcadel, pouncing on Louis, where he crouched in the darkest corner, forced him forward to the head of the staircase. There the lad fell on his knees weeping futilely, wailing prayers. But the guard kicked him forward. "In!" he said. "You know what you have to do! In, and strip them! Do you hear? And if you leave as much as a knife----" "I won't! I daren't!" Louis screamed. And grovelling on his face on the leads he clung to whatever offered itself.