The next moment the window shut with a bang, and the light died out, leaving the building once more in darkness.
“Get to work,” said Grant. “Forward, those who are going to cover the axe-men!”
There was a flash from the verandah, apparently in protest and without intent to hurt, for the next moment a few half-seen objects flung themselves over the balustrade as the men with the axes came up, and others with rifles took their places a few paces behind them. Then one of the horsemen shouted a question.
“Let them pass,” said Grant.
The door was solid and braced with iron, but those who assailed it had swung the axe since they had the strength to lift it, and in the hands of such men it is a very effective implement. The door shook and rattled as the great blades whirled and fell, each one dropping into the notch the other had made; the men panted as they smote; the splinters flew in showers.
“Holding out still!” gasped one of them. “There’s iron here. Get some of the boys to chop that redwood pillar, and we’ll drive it down.”
There was an approving murmur, but Grant grasped the man by the shoulder. “No,” he said. “We haven’t come to wreck the town. I’ve another plan if you’re more than two minutes getting in.”
The axes whirled faster, and at last a man turned breathlessly. “Get ready, boys,” he said. “One more on the bolt head, Jake, and we’re in!”
A brawny man twice whirled the hissing blade about his head, and as he swung forward with both hands on the haft with a dull crash the wedge of tempered steel clove the softer metal. The great door tilted and went down, and Breckenridge sprang past the axe-men through the opening. His voice came back exultantly out of the shadowy building. “It was the old country sent you the first man in!”
The men’s answer was a shout as they followed him, with a great trampling down the corridor, but the rest of the building was very silent, and nobody disputed their passage until at last a man with grey hair appeared with a lantern behind an iron grille.