The moment's gain, however, was all that Stanhope needed, though it was no more. In the dark hall where a single candle burned, Varney had met Henry. The instant before, a man's head and shoulders had protruded suddenly through the broken-in parlor window, and Henry, waiting patiently in the shadow of the wall had flatted him to the floor with a heavy chair, which broke in his hands. Then he heard swift footsteps in the hall, and divining what had happened, bounded out.
"Stand clear, man!" cried Varney loudly. "I'm going out."
A prolonged shouting indicated that the promise was heard with approval outside. But not so with Henry, who closed in on him fiercely, crying: "Not hon your bloomin' life, you don't—harskin' your pardon, sir!"
Varney, however, was a thing of nerves and passion now, all energy and muscle and concentrated purpose. He shook the man off like a rat, and the next moment burst open the front door.
All this had happened far more quickly than it can be set down. Five minutes had hardly passed since Henry's first challenge had rung from the upstairs window. This would have been ample time to carry the house by storm, front and back, had the invaders had the leadership and wit; but these things they lacked. They were still massed on the front porch, pell-mell, in a turbulent group, ramping, raging, thirsty for action, but as yet ineffective; though one of them had at that moment set a match to a torch of newspapers and kindling wood. Delay had loosed the hunter's instinct in the half-drunken band: it broke into flame at sight of the quarry. Varney had scarcely shown himself in the half-opened door when some one struck him a savage blow on the chin that sent him reeling backwards.
He had come out to them with no plan, no sense of hostility, and only because, in his disturbed mood, he despised Stanhope so utterly that he would take no protection from him, or give him any share in his own troubles. But at that blow, a demon sprang to life in him which knew no law but an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. His left arm shot out like a piston at the dim flushed face before him, and the face bobbed downward out of sight.
At the same moment, the heavy back of a chair in supple hands descended out of space behind him with a thud; and a great tall fellow, staggering backward with the unexpected pain of that stroke, for the moment obstructed his comrades. For Henry had followed where he could not lead, and now ranged himself joyously at Varney's side in the narrow threshold.
The setback, however, was trivial. In the next breath, they closed round him with a great shout, thrusting Henry violently to one side. Three men were required for this latter task, who so missed the real sport of the night. Another was caught when the front porch fell in with a crash, and was pulled out with a broken leg an hour later. But enough remained. Varney was instantly lost in a struggling and kicking hurly-burly of arms and legs, and was borne with them in a rush down the short flight of steps to the lawn. All, of course, could not reach him. So it happened that two or three, on the outskirts of the tossing group, heard the feet of reinforcements in the hallway and wheeled at that sound. Even in the faint light, Peter's great size made him easily recognizable; and a young man of Hare's party named Bud Spinks, who admired him intensely and had partaken of his hospitality in the town, was still enough himself to cry out:
"Keep away, Mr. Maginnis! This ain't your fuss!"
"You'll see!" shouted Peter, and cleared the wrecked porch at a bound.