Another shot was fired from the balcony, and wounded one of the
Tyrolese sharpshooters.
Wild cries of rage filled the court-yard, all eyes turned menacingly to the balcony. But Ulrich von Hohenberg had stepped back into the room, and nobody saw that he was reloading his fowling-piece, which, with his hunting-pouch and powder-horn, had hung in the dining-room.
"I shall defend myself until my soldiers come to deliver me," he said courageously to himself. Thereupon he moved the large table from the room to the balcony, placed it on its side, and leaned it against the railing; on the other side of the balcony he placed the bench in the same manner, and, protected behind this three-cornered barricade from the bullets of the Tyrolese, he pushed his gun into the aperture between the bench and the table, and fired again.
Furious cries again filled the court-yard, for the captain's shot had disabled another Tyrolese. The women wailed and lamented loudly, the men uttered fierce imprecations, and lifted their clinched fists menacingly toward the balcony. The soldiers had withdrawn from the windows, and were deliberating with their officers as to the course which they were to adopt. A defence was almost impossible, for, although they had their side-arms and carbines, they could not do any thing with the former before reaching the ground and engaging in a hand-to-hand fight with the peasants; and the carbines were utterly useless, as no ammunition had been distributed among them, the cartridges being in the captain's room in the main part of the castle.
"Ten of you will enter the castle," commanded Anthony Wallner now. "You will take the captain prisoner, and if he refuses to surrender, shoot him down as he has shot three of our brethren."
Ten of the most courageous sharpshooters stepped from the ranks and rushed into the castle.
"He is lost!" murmured Eliza Wallner, with pale lips, and she sank on her knees by the side of her friend Elza.
Now were heard resounding in the castle the thundering blows which the Tyrolese struck with the butt-ends of their rides against the door of the room where Ulrich von Hohenberg was locked up.
"The door is old and worm-eaten, it will give way," sighed Elza, and she hastened resolutely toward Anthony Wallner, who was just calling again on the soldiers with cool intrepidity to surrender to him.
"Anthony Wallner," she said, in a soft, suppliant voice, "you will not stain your great and sacred cause by cowardly murder. You will never think of killing in my father's own house his relative and guest?"