It was just beginning to get light when a tap came on the door, and the voice of the villainous old miller—
"Your breakfast is ready. We should start in half an hour."
"Hel-lo?" I asked, in as sleepy a fashion as I could make it.
He repeated his message, and Le Marchant, with his ear against the door, nodded confirmation of our fears. The breakfast we were invited to consisted of muskets and cutlasses and hard blows.
It was Le Marchant's very reasonable anger at this treacherous usage that saved us in a way we had not looked for. But possibly there was in him some dim idea of chances of escape in what might follow. Chance there was none if we walked into the next room or tried the window.
Our comfortable bed consisted of sweet soft hay inside the usual covering. He suddenly ripped this open, tore out the hay in handfuls and flung it under the bedstead, then pulled out his flint and steel and set it ablaze. The room was full of smoke in a moment, and we heard startled cries from the outer room. Taking the stout oak chair by opposite legs we pulled till they parted, and we were armed.
The door burst open and the miller went down headlong under Le Marchant's savage blow.
"Next!" he cried, swinging his club athwart the doorway. But, though there were many voices, no head was offered for his blow.
The flames burned fiercely behind us. With a crack of my chair leg I broke both windows, and the smoke poured out and relieved us somewhat, and the fire blazed up more fiercely still. The flooring was all on fire and the dry old walls behind the bed, and we stood waiting for the next man to appear.
"Better give in, boys," cried someone in the outer room. "You'll only make things worse for yourselves." But we answered never a word, and stood the more cautiously on our guard.