“They will try to reach us by one of the first-floor windows.”
“Yes; but they will only be able to come up one at a time, and so long as the ammunition lasts I think we can keep them back.—Why, Stan, my lad, this is a queer experience for you,” continued Uncle Jeff as, taking everything quite coolly, he helped his brother to lock and carefully secure what was literally the front-door of their dwelling, although it was entered by means of a flight of steps, and was on the first floor of the newly built house.
“Yes, uncle, it is strange,” said the boy quietly: “but it seems very horrible for you and my father.”
“Eh?” said Uncle Jeff dryly. “Well, yes, it is rather horrible, but mostly so for the Chinamen. There! let’s get to one of the windows, and—”
“Yes, uncle—quick! That one to the left. Oh, pray make haste!”
“Why?” said Stan’s father, impressed by his son’s sudden display of excitement.
“I saw the top of a ladder faintly showing against the sky.”
As the lad finished speaking, proof of his assertion came in the shape of a little shower of splintered glass driven out of one of the window-sashes to fall tinkling into the dark room.
Almost at the same moment Stan obeyed the first dictates of his common-sense as called forth by the emergency; for, without waiting to be told, he raised the pistol he held and took a quick aim in what he considered to be the right direction.
A loud yell was the result, and as Stan’s father rushed to the window to follow up the shot with another, he held his hand, and stood looking down into the dimly seen group below. He was just in time to make out faintly the top of a ladder describing an arch above the crowd beneath, while, clinging to it and crying for help, there, like a bundle of clothes, was the figure of the man who had first attempted the escalade.