When I had emptied my revolver I dropped it, grabbed a “killer” from the hand of a fellow I had shot pointblank, and laid about me with that. I suppose Pendennis did the same. As Loris had warned me, when it came to shooting, there was no time for reloading; but the “killer” was all right. I wonder he hadn’t given me one!
We were holding our own well, in spite of the tremendous odds, and after a while—though whether it was five minutes or fifty I couldn’t say—they gave back a bit. There was quite a heap of dead and wounded round about us; but I don’t think Anne’s father was hurt as yet, and I felt no pain, though my left arm hung limp and useless, numbed by a blow from a “killer” that had missed my head; and something warm was dripping down my right wrist.
“What now?” I heard Pendennis say, in that brief lull in the pandemonium.
“God knows. We can’t get to the door; we must fight it out here; they’re coming on again. On guard!”
We swung up our weapons, but before the rush could reach us, there was a crash close at hand; the door through which Anne and her guards had entered the chapel was thrown open, and a big man dashed in,—Loris himself, still in his disguise. So he had reached us at last!
He must have grasped the situation at a glance, for he shouted: “Back; back for your lives! By the other door. We are betrayed; the soldiers are here. They are coming this way. Save yourselves!”