There were eight left now of Goldstein’s men, and they rushed in with such fury that they jostled one another, hindering their aim. Eight shots spat viciously at the garrison of two, and Shackleton’s right arm was hit by a bullet that glanced wide from the masonry behind him. He clubbed his musket with the left hand and brought it down on the head of the man nearest to him, and then he was borne down by numbers.
Rupert, not for the first time in his life, was alone against long odds. But to-night he was master of his house, master of the clean, eager soul that had waited for this battle. From the kitchen, where he had bidden his women-folk take shelter, he heard Lady Royd’s spaniel yapping furiously; and he smiled, because old memories were stirred.
He went up five steps of the stairway, singled out the sergeant, because he was the bulkiest of the seven left, and fired point-blank at him. After that there was no leisure for any one of them to reload; it was simply Rupert on the narrow stairway, swinging his musket lightly, against six maddened troopers who could only come up one by one.
It was Nance who intervened disastrously. She did not know—how could she—that the master, at the end of a dismaying, harassed vigil, was stronger than the six who met him. They were dulled to the glory of assault, but he was gathering up the dreams of the long, unproven years, was fighting his first battle, was armoured by a faith more keen and vivid than this world’s weaknesses could touch.
Nance, sick to know how it was faring with the master, weary of the yapping spaniel and the old housekeeper’s complaint that she wished to die decently in her bed, out of eye-shot of rude men—Nance crept up the back stair, and took a musket from the ledge of the north window she had guarded. Then she went down again, crossed the passage that led to the main hall, halted a moment as she saw Rupert on the stair, the six men below—all lit by the unearthly, crimson flare of burning woodwork—and lifted her musket with trim precision.
She had lessened the odds by one; but Rupert, glancing down to see who had fired so unexpectedly, saw Nance standing at the rear of this battle which was his. And his weakness took him unawares. He had been dominant and gay, because he carried his life lightly; but now there was Nance’s honour. One of the five left came up at him, and Rupert’s aim was true with the butt-end of his musket; but he was not fighting now with a single purpose, and he knew it. And sleep, kept at bay through every minute of every hour that had struck since Goldstein’s men came first, began to claim its toll.
He could not hold the stair, sleep whispered at his ear. And he rallied bravely, afraid for the first time because of Nance. If he should fail to keep the stair? A sharp, unreasoning anger seized him. Why was she here? Women were good to send men into battle, to bind their wounds up afterwards, but in the hot, keen thick of it they had no place. Do as he would, his glance kept seeking the little figure that stood on the edge of the fire-glow, and the men pressing up were quick to see the change in him.
With a last, hard effort he shut down all thought of Nance. The troopers he had stunned lay sprawling down the stair, hindering the men behind. For a moment there was respite, and in that moment sleep thickened round the master’s eyelids. The confidence, the sense of treading air, borrowed at usury from his strength, were fast deserting him. He had victory full in sight on this narrow stair, and, like his Prince, he felt it slip past him out of reach, for no cause that seemed logical.
Nance did not guess the share she had had in this. She saw only that Rupert stooped suddenly, as if in mortal sickness, then squared his shoulders—saw that one of the men at the stairfoot was reloading his musket with deft haste, and shut her eyes. For she, too, was weak from lack of sleep.
Will Underwood, meanwhile, was running down the moor, the red-faced squire and the other sporting recusants behind him. There was no doubt now that Windyhough was in urgent peril. They could see the flaming doorway, could smell the scudding reek of smoke that came up-wind.