He was trembling violently with the excitement, and his face had taken on the look of one wrought up to the fighting pitch. To tell the truth, Josh had but a single regret just then, which was that he did not possess the mate of the weapon his chum gripped in his hand.
“And I’d never have bothered just peppering ’em in their legs, either,” he afterwards affirmed, when talking matters over with Hanky Panky; “they were meaning to get us, and if the shoe happened to be on the other foot who would be to blame?”
When Rod saw that the four men once more picked up the heavy ladder and started to swing it forward he realized that it was up to him to try again. By gradually reducing the number of their foes he must in the end check their drive.
So he coolly picked out the next victim. As before, it had to be one of those in front, so as to bring confusion to the charge, as the rest were bound to trip over him should he fall.
All this while there arose from different quarters loud outcries and shouts of laughter from the spoilers, filled with the mad desire to inflict a reign of terror and frightfulness upon the natives. Shots were also heard at intervals, women screamed, children shrieked, dogs barked, and taken in all it was a combination of sounds never to be forgotten by those who happened to be in the little French village.
Well, Rod was just as successful with that second shot of his as he had been on the former occasion. With the report of his weapon he could see the man start, and give every evidence of being hard hit. He managed to keep from falling, however, being sustained by his grip on the ladder, as well as the impetus of his companions’ advance.
It might have altered things somewhat had Rod been given an opportunity to discharge a third shot, this time selecting the other fellow in the van; but before he could really grasp the immensity of this idea it was too late.
The heavy ladder struck the already weakened door, and such was the force with which it was hurled forward that it tore the latter from its hinges and sent it to the floor, the end of the ladder projecting several feet into the room.
Rod, seeing what was about to happen, had swept his two comrades back so that none of them chanced to be struck by the falling door. There was now a wide gap, and the three uninjured Uhlans might easily rush through this. They would find, however, that the resistance of the inmates did not end with the breaking in of the door; for there was Rod holding himself in readiness to shoot again, Josh with his upraised poker, Hanky Panky also in line with a club, and the old man who had secured the revered gun that had hung on the wall since ’71, waiting for this day, had its sword bayonet adjusted so as to pin the first German who dared venture across that threshold.
Fortunately there was no necessity for further action on the part of the valiant defenders of the village home, for just at that moment there arose a series of the wildest shouts Rod had ever heard. They were shouting in unison, those zouaves, as they spread through the village looking for Uhlans to spit upon their hungry bayonets. Hanky Panky in times past had more than once ventured to make fun of certain phrases which he had heard spoken in French; but he was now ready to confess that there was no language on the face of the earth to be compared with the French as falling from the bearded lips of men who wore those baggy red trousers of the famous zouaves.