It was palpably enough a signal for which they had been waiting, like the pack-master's horn casting loose his hounds. Instantly the place burst into an eruption of confused and frenzied tumult. Henderson had a momentary sense of unshaven faces with lips drawn over wolfish fangs, of the pungent reek of gunpowder in his nostrils and, in his ears, the cracking of pistol reports--as yet sounding only in demonstration. With a few steps more they would be swarming upon him, as a pack piles upon its defenseless quarry. But his own weapon spat doggedly, too, and for the brevity of an instant the rush wavered. His assailants were crowding each other so hamperingly that the fusillade from the front was wild and, at first, ineffective. Those at the fore, cooled by a resolute reception and the sight of one of their number going down, with a snarl of pain, pressed forcibly back. For the space of one quick breath, they afforded their victim a reprieve. He was groping, with his left hand outstretched, against the wall toward the nearby door, when he felt that arm grow numb and drop limp at his side. Through his left shoulder darted a sensation hardly recognized as pain. The two doors had not been closed. It was unnecessary. Before the victim should reach either he would be riddled, and even if he gained one he would fall before he could mount and ride away. Since they had him at their mercy they could afford to toy with him. No one saw the figure that had materialized on the threshold to which all the backs of the yelping crowd were turned. It had come unannounced from the outer darkness. It stood for a moment looking on and in that moment understood the only thing necessary to comprehend: that the man who must be married to-night, was being prematurely assassinated. From his shadow of concealment at the door, this volunteer in the conflict thrust forward his rifle. His lean jaws were set and his eyes were full of a cold and very deadly light. It was the ringing voice of his repeater that announced him as it launched into the place so swift and fatal a sequence of messages that, to those inside, it appeared that they were being raked by a squad's volley. The sharp challenge of the clean-mouthed rifle, multiplied by its echo, dominated the muffled belching of revolvers like thunder crashing through the smother of winds, and upon the drunken mob of murderers, the effect was both immediate and appalling. To a savage lust for violence succeeded panic and an uncontrollable instinct of flight.