Before the music of it died away the sergeant showed his hand, and death at its grizzliest grinned through the window. A great mass of damp, smouldering straw, lifted on pikels, was thrust into the window-frame, filling it completely, and thick wreaths of dense, foul smoke eddied into the room, while through the straw the rain of bullets poured on, smashing and splintering on walls and ceiling, door and barricade. The Colonel slashed and poked at the straw with his rapier. Telling Margaret to crouch on the floor, I crawled on my belly and fetched the bed-staff, which stood in its accustomed corner of the chimney-piece. It made a much more serviceable tool for the job, and I flung it across to the Colonel, who seized it and worked it like a blackamoor till he was almost the colour of one, and had, to judge by his voice and demeanour, got almost beyond his German in his rage. Asking for Margaret's handkerchief, I tied it loosely round her mouth, my heart near to bursting as I looked into her calm and patient face. Then I lay down flat and wormed out into the room and, after a hard struggle, wrenched off one of the rods which carried the rings of the bed-curtains. I remember that, as I lay there, writhing and struggling, I counted the bullets, eleven of them, as they spattered about me. However, I got back to Margaret's side untouched, and poked and thrust and slashed to make a hole near her face between straw and window-frame. Our efforts were practically useless. The straw was cunningly fed from below, and the pall of smoke was now so heavy and dense that the fringe of it was settling down on Margaret's tower of yellow hair, and as I watched the rate at which it was falling, I knew the end was coming. The Colonel had worked with the energy of despair to tear down the vile enemy that was killing us by inches, and now suddenly collapsed and fell like a log to the floor. Margaret would have crawled to him, but I kept her by main force against the wall while I wriggled out of my coat. "We have one chance left, Margaret," said I. "Your father is only overcome by the smoke--see, there's no sign of a wound about him--and his fall is a godsend. Give me your other handkerchief and lie down flat, face to the floor and close to the window, and listen for my next instructions." She did so without a word. I wrapped my coat loosely about her head, and before I could close it in the smoke cloud was settling down on her, even as she lay. I was nearly done for, but she was safe for a few minutes. Lying full length on the floor, under the window, I tied her handkerchief to the end of the curtain-rod, thrust it through the straw, and waved it about as vigorously as I could. The sergeant's voice rang out. The firing ceased. The foul masses of straw were removed. Then the scoundrel came forward and leered up at me. "Do your terms hold good?" I shouted. "Yes," he said.