I got into bed, which never before seemed so welcome. I seemed to relax every muscle and abandon myself to rest. I heard the far-away hooting of a whippoorwill--the gentle murmur of the winds as they sighed through the branches seemed to sing me a sweet lullaby. I imagined I was again a child; so sweet and perfect was the rest; and I remembered the gentle baritone voice of The Man as he had said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed----” I was asleep. It seemed as if I had not slept ten minutes, but I found afterward five hours had passed, when I was startled by a wild yelling, and a coarse, grating, brutal voice that shouted: “Now we have got ’em--pound in the door!” Bang--crash it went, and the tramping of a score of feet I heard below. I jumped from bed, and without a thought as to what I would do grabbed the end of the ladder, and in a twinkling it was on the floor under my feet. “There, boys, didn’t I tell you? They’re up-stairs. There, Bill, why in hell didn’t you ketch that ladder afore they pulled it up, or else go up it?” “What, you think that I’d go up that ladder alone and fight the two of ’em? Not much! Why, the man alone is a terror--and the woman, God help us! she’d scratch my eyes out afore the rest and you could come up.” “Hey, you, up thar, you old reprobate, we are on to you, don’t yer see? Now come down peaceable or it’ll go hard with you.” They waited for an answer, but not a word did I say. I hastily had put on my dress, and stood with a little hickory-bottomed chair in my hands near the opening in the floor through which I had pulled the ladder. “Hain’t you goin’ to answer? Well, all right, don’t then! We’ll jist make a bonfire on this yer floor and see if it singes yer manes.” Some one of the rabble outside here fired a revolver several times, but I rightly guessed this was only to frighten. I still stood firm. Perhaps I was frightened, but if so it did not affect my strength, for I was waiting for a head to appear at the opening, and I did not have to wait long, for soon there was a whispered consultation below. I heard a hoarse whisper say, “No, you go”--“Well then, Jake, you try it,”--“Hell, who’s afraid! Here, you, give me a lift,” and a hand grasped the edge of the floor. I stepped back, gripped the chair and swung it aloft, and through the floor by the glare of the torches I saw the face of Bilkson, the junior. That chair was well on its errand before I caught sight of the countenance; but no matter, I would not have stayed it if I could. Crash--down went the man. I heard him fall like a dead weight, just as I have seen a bale of hay tumbled out of a barn door. “I’m shot! I’m shot! Run for a doctor, boys. I’m dying! A minister. Oh, Judas! I’m shot through the brain,” I heard him scream.