Besides, he had seen men panic-stricken by a sudden attack of this sort.

Should Brower and his men hesitate but an instant before closing with him, he should shoot three instead of two, and then the odds would be on the right side.
He had not long to wait.

The heavy steps sounded in Margaret's room, and came nearer and nearer.
The light also approached, and voices.
Martin's heart, stout as it was, beat hard, to hear men coming thus to their death, and perhaps to his; more likely so than not: for four is long odds in a battlefield of ten feet square, and Gerard might be bound perhaps, and powerless to help.

But this man, whom we have seen shake in his shoes at a Giles-o'-lanthorn, never wavered in this awful moment of real danger, but stood there, his body all braced for combat, and his eye glowing, equally ready to take life and lose it.

Desperate game! to win which was exile instant and for life, and to lose it was to die that moment upon that floor he stood on.
Dierich Brower and his men found Peter in his first sleep.