I strode to it and flung it wide.
A flash of arms greeted my eyes, a vision of fierce faces. In an instant a dozen men came crowding into the room, and I saw that they wore the uniform of the Republic.
I STRODE TO THE DOOR AND FLUNG IT WIDE
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DRAGON’S DEN.
The rush of the intruders, sudden and overwhelming, drove me back from the door, but I managed to hold my place, pistol in hand, before my love, too dazed for the moment to do aught but stare at them and curse the fortune which had brought us to this desperate pass. But I had a part to play,—a part I had rehearsed more than once for an emergency just such as this,—and I got my wits back by a supreme effort, while the newcomers still stood gaping in a semicircle about us.
“Well, citizens,” I said, trying to achieve a smile, “one would have thought you were taking a fortress by assault.”
“We were set to patrol this road,” explained one of them. “We saw this light and determined to find out what was going forward here.”
I saw by their awkwardness and want of discipline that they were not trained soldiery, but raw levies with no clear idea of their duties; and my spirits rose.
“Quite right,” I commended, smiling this time in earnest. “I suspected as much. That is why I opened so promptly, since we have nothing to conceal. There is no enemy of the Republic here—only this honest old fellow, this woman and myself. So farewell, my friends. Oblige me by using this to drink the health of the Nation;” and I tossed their spokesman a silver crown.