In spite of his help, however, the excise men drove on.
“God! if the Captain was only here!” groaned Blueneck aloud. The man next him caught his words and looked round, so did his neighbour, and in a moment all that was left of the Anny’s crew realized that their captain had deserted them, and a certain hopelessness crept into the fighting from that time on, and in a minute or two the smugglers retreated in a body, knocking over the barrels and benches as they went. They scuttled into the inner room and then slammed the heavy oak door behind them.
Habakkuk alone was left behind and he, finding the door shut upon him, turned to fly through the other door into the yard, but a Preventative man’s sword ran him through just as he reached the threshold, and with one last sniff the brave little laundryman fell prone in a pool of his own blood.
The kitchen was very dark, there being no fire, as it was summer-time, and the only light was the moonlight which showed in through the windows and fell on the floor in two bright patches.
So when the door slammed on them, Thomas Playle took the opportunity of counting his forces. He found to his deep disappointment that he had lost a great many more men than he had dreamed, and those around him in the kitchen numbered at the most no more than six or seven.
“We must get them yet,” he said, speaking to his few remaining followers in a low tone. “An you two stay here and I and Jacques go round to the other door we——” Suddenly he caught his breath, his voice trailed away into silence, and he started back, his drawn sword put up to shield his body.
The man to whom he had been principally speaking had quietly dropped without a cry, and as he touched the ground his head and shoulders rolled into the patch of moonlight, and his horrified comrades saw a thin spurt of blood shooting out from a clean small wound in his neck just over the collar-bone.
Before they could collect their wits after this shock there was a faint patter of feet behind them and another man staggered, tried to speak, reeled, and fell.
Instantly there was confusion; men slashed about in the darkness striking anything and any one, shouting, and screaming. A terrible fear of something unknown and horrible possessed them and each man made for the yard, but one by one as they approached the doorway the unseen terror caught them and they fell. At last there were but three left, young Playle himself, his mate, Jacques, and the Charles’s gunner, a tall, powerful man called Rilp.
These three stood back to back in the centre of the kitchen, making a triangle, their swords drawn before them, so that it was practically impossible for anything to harm them from behind.