"Stay!" said Warrender. "There isn't time. You must bring what you can.

Don't delay. Sticks, forks, spades--you've a mattock there," he added, addressing a man on the settle against the wall. "Bring it along. All of you bring what you can lay hands on. Mr. Drew, you're an active man.

Run up into the village and collect all the men you can find, and take them up to the Red House by the road. Set a couple to guard the gate, lead the rest on to the tower. You others, borrow some garden tools from Rogers--or anything; and come with me. Here's Rogers." The innkeeper, minus his wig, came back with his fowling-piece. "You'll lend your tools?"

"Ay sure. In the shed, neighbours; you do know the way. My poor Molly!"

"I give you five minutes!" cried Warrender. "Come down to the ferry.

I'll wait for you--five minutes only."

He hurried out, followed by Rogers. The younger men among the rest, bestirring themselves at last, went round the inn into the garden.

Within five minutes a group of seven, armed with hoe, rake, spade, mattock, fork, fowling-piece, and coal-hammer, was gathered on the landing-stage.

"Squeeze into the boat," said Warrender. "I'll run you down and land you opposite No Man's Island. You must pack tight."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'SQUEEZE INTO THE BOAT.'"]

They crowded into the boat. Warrender opened the throttle. A shriek was heard, and Mrs. Rogers came flying out of the inn, flourishing her husband's wig.

"Joe, you gawkhammer, you've left your hair behind."

"Make it into a stew and be jowned to it!" shouted Rogers, as the boat hummed away.

Landing on the bank opposite the cottage, the party hurried through the plantation, Warrender taking the lead.

"No talking, men," he said.

They emerged into the park. The tower came in sight. From the roof a dense column of brown smoke rose straight into the still air. Rogers groaned.

"G.o.d send we be in time!" he murmured, as he pounded heavily along.

CHAPTER XXV

SQUARING ACCOUNTS

Armstrong profited by the enemy's first check to bind his handkerchief round Mr. Pratt's arm.

"Hadn't you better go upstairs, sir, out of harm's way?" he asked.

"Call myself a casualty and slink to the rear? No, thank you, my lad.

Not while I can stand and use my left arm. We must hold our ground here at all costs."

"Here, sir?"

"Yes. They must not drive us beyond the first floor. No doubt they have released the man you tied up, and the fact that they still attack us shows there is something upstairs they don't want to leave."

"I saw some tin cases in the room above."

"Filled with forged notes, beyond doubt. But what's this? Do you smell burning?"

"Smoke--wood smoke. D'you hear the crackling? They have fired the tower."

"Not they. They won't burn their notes. They want to drive us above.

It is very ingenious--and very unpleasant."

The pungent smoke from burning wood rolled up the staircase in ever-increasing volume. Percy came running down, carrying, not an iron bar, but an a.s.segai taken from the wall of the top room.

"Didn't notice it before," he said.

"Run up again and open the door to the roof," said his uncle. "We may as well stave off asphyxia as long as we can."

Armstrong caught sight of a head peering up from the round of the wall below. He raised his hand suddenly as if to fire. The head disappeared.

"Spying to see if we have gone," chuckled Mr. Pratt.

With the opening of the door above, the smoke rose more rapidly. Mr.

Pratt coughed.

"I have the misfortune to be a trifle asthmatical," he said. "It is very unpleasant."

"May as well cough, too. It will encourage 'em," said Armstrong, with a grim smile. "Percy, you can manage a churchyard cough."

They both coughed, at first deliberately, but as the smoke thickened, involuntarily.

Suddenly there was a rush of feet below. Armstrong bent forward, thrusting out his iron bar; but the foremost of the a.s.sailants, the Swede, seemed to have expected the move, for he slipped aside, bent almost double, crying to his comrade behind him, and sprang towards Percy. The boy, having just run downstairs and only at that moment caught up the a.s.segai, was a little late with his lunge. Jensen seized the head of the weapon and tugged at it, forcing Percy down a step or two. To save himself, Percy let go; the Swede staggered backward against Radewski, who was in the act of discharging his revolver at Armstrong. The jostling of the man's arm spoilt his aim, and the bullet, which, fired point-blank, would probably have found its billet in Armstrong's breast, struck him on the right shoulder and spun him half round. Mr. Pratt had hitherto been unable to use his pistol for fear of hitting one or other of the boys; but now, seeing that both were for the moment at a disadvantage, he dashed between them, fired with his left hand at the Pole, only two steps below, and sent him rolling down the stairs with a shot in his groin.

But the enemy were not this time to be denied. Jensen, inspired with l.u.s.t of vengeance, had quickly recovered his footing. Immediately below him Rod and Sibelius, pointing their revolvers, only awaited an opportunity of firing as soon as there was no risk of hitting their own comrade. Mr. Pratt, who was weaker than he knew, had just pulled his trigger without effect; either the chamber was empty or something had jammed. Armstrong, with a wound in the shoulder, was leaning, for the moment overcome with pain, against the wall of the staircase. Taking in the whole scene, Percy felt that all was over. His own weapon was gone; even if he should seize Armstrong's bar, single-handed he must soon be overpowered.

At this crisis, by one of those tricks of the mind which no one can account for, he suddenly remembered the packet of pepper he had bought in the village, and one of the uses to which pepper could be put. It was still in his pocket. s.n.a.t.c.hing it out, he swiftly unfolded the top of the cone-shaped paper bag, and holding the bag by the screwed-up end, he scattered its contents upon the face of Jensen, just rounding the bend. With a howl of rage and pain the Swede recoiled on his comrades behind, driving them back upon the remainder of their party at the foot of the stairs. The volume of wood smoke had lessened when they started the attack; and now the cloud of pepper, floating down slowly upon the fumes, spread over the whole width of the staircase. A chorus of sneezes soared up--a chorus in many parts, from the shrill tenor of Prutti, the Italian chauffeur, to the resonant ba.s.s of the corpulent Swiss, Maximilien Rod. Gradoff's sneeze was distinguishable from Jensen's, and the two strangers performed a duet in sternutation. There were interludes of cursing and yelling; Rush's sense of humour appeared to be tickled, as well as his nostrils; for Pratt declared that he heard him guffawing between his sneezes. After all, Rush was an Englishman.

The performers were still busy--the audience on the stairs was about to move a little higher up--when there came, from some spot without, a sound of cheers. Never was applause so unwelcome to a foreign band.

With the sneezes now mingled cries of alarm, the noise of feet scuffling amid litter, a running to and fro. Percy, with a whoop of delight, dashed downstairs, picking up his a.s.segai on the way. When he reached the room below, he was momentarily checked by a sneeze; then, through the clearing smoke, his streaming eyes beheld two figures struggling on the floor. A second glance distinguished them as Jensen and his old enemy, Henery Drew. The farmer was uppermost.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE FARMER WAS UPPERMOST."]

"Come and see fair play, Jack," Pratt shouted up the stairs to Armstrong, who had pulled himself together and was following him.

From outside came fierce shouts, pistol shots, the clash of weapons.

Pratt dashed out. Gradoff and his gang (all but Rush, who had surrendered at once) were sustaining an unequal struggle with the infuriated villagers who had closed upon them. On the one side Warrender, with Rogers and the rest, on the other the group of villagers collected by Drew--of whom the general dealer, smarting for his unpaid bill, had const.i.tuted himself the temporary leader in rivalry with Constable Hardstone--a body of some twenty determined men, who were perhaps a little breathless from haste. Not so with the others. As Samson lost his strength with his hair, so these international adventurers, desperate, courageous enough, holding life cheap, became as children under the debilitating pungency of pepper. A man cannot sneeze and fight. Some few shots were fired; a bullet grazed Rogers's shining skull; another struck out of Blevins's hand the mallet he carried; a third carried away the lobe of an ear from a young carter, who refused to leave the field until he had found it. Short, sharp, decisive, the battle ended in a general capitulation. Only one of the foreigners escaped; Gradoff, seeing that all was lost, kept his last bullet for himself.

From the doorway Mr. Pratt had watched the pinioning of the prisoners.

A cheer broke from his neighbours and tenants. And, just as a move towards the house was being made, Mr. Crawshay and two of his men, armed with shot-guns, came trotting across the sward.

"G.o.d bless you, Pratt, my dear fellow," cried the old gentleman, grasping his neighbour by the hand, and shaking it vigorously up and down.

Mr. Pratt sneezed.