He cast his eyes wildly round like some savage beast seeking an escape, and in a twinkling formed a resolution terribly characteristic of those iron times and of a soldier driven to bay.

He stepped to each door in turn, and imitating Dierich Brower's voice, said sharply, "Watch the window!" He then quietly closed and bolted both doors.

He then took up his bow and six arrows; one he fitted to his string, the others he put into his quiver.

His knife he placed upon a chair behind him, the hilt towards him; and there he waited at the foot of the stair with the calm determination to slay those four men, or be slain by them.

Two, he knew, he could dispose of by his arrows, ere they could get near him, and Gerard and he must take their chance hand-to-hand with the remaining pair.