“You’d better keep it, sir,” said the old fellow contemptuously. “Them chaps has got heads and hearts too hard to be hurt with a bit of a stick. Oh, that’s the game, is it? Well, I’ll keep the knife then.”
This remark was made on seeing Mr Meldon draw a long, keenly-pointed three-edged sword out of the stick, a weapon likely to prove fatal to any one upon whom it was used.
Unfortunately for the defenders of the cabin, they had but little with which they could make a barricade. There was the bedding, and a few chairs, but even if these were piled up, but little could be done, as Dutch pointed out to the captain in a low voice.
“I am no judge of fortifications,” he said with a bitter smile, “but look up.”
The captain glanced at the skylight, and stamped with vexation.
“We have not so much as a pistol, Captain Studwick, and the enemy have only to place three or four there to fire down upon us and we are done for.”
“Would you give up then, Pugh?” said the captain sternly.
“Not so long as I can strike a blow,” was the reply; and the same spirit seemed to nerve all present.
There was not much time left them for consideration, for it was evident that full preparations were going on above. Voices were heard talking and orders being given, but the men kept away from the broken skylight, and the suspense grew more intense.
It was during this interval that Mr Meldon went to the inner cabin, where, weak and feverish, John Studwick lay, watched over now by his sister and Hester Pugh, who seemed to have awakened to a new life as she exchanged glances once with her husband, the trials they were in seeming as nothing compared to the horrors of the past.