The next moment they returned with redoubled fury, dashing stones against the windows and the roof, while the door resounded with the blows of their clubs.
Notwithstanding the stones which were flying round him, Barnabas stood at the window dashing down the heavy iron masses, and killing two or three men every time.
His brother, meanwhile, continued firing from the tower, and not a ball was aimed in vain. The besiegers had lost a great number, and began to fall back, after fruitless efforts to break in the door, when a footman entered breathless, to inform Barnabas that the Wallachians were beginning to scale the opposite side of the castle with ladders, and that the servants were unable to resist them.
Barnabas rushed to the spot.
Two servants lay mortally wounded in one of the back rooms, through the windows of which the Wallachians were already beginning to enter, while another ladder had been placed against the opposite window, which they were beginning to scale as Barnabas entered.
"Here, wretches!" he roared furiously, and, seizing the ladder with both hands, shook it so violently that the men were precipitated from it, and then, lifting it with supernatural strength, he dashed it against the opposite one, which broke with the force of the weight thrown against it, the upper part falling backwards with the men upon it, while one of the party remained hanging from the window-sill, and, after immense exertions to gain a footing, he too fell to the earth.
Barnabas rushed into the next room grinding his teeth, his lips foaming, and his face of a livid hue: so appalling was his whole appearance, that one of the gang, who had been the first to enter by the window, turned pale with terror, and dropped his axe.
Taking advantage of this, Barnabas darted on his enemy, and, dragging him with irresistible force to the window, he dashed him from it.
"On here! as many as you are," he shouted furiously, the blood gushing from his mouth from the blow of a stone. "On! all who wish a fearful death!"
At that instant, a shriek of terror rose within the house. The Wallachians had discovered the little back door which Simon had left open, and, stealing through it, were already inside the house, when the shrieks of a servant girl gave the besieged notice of their danger.