He had already sprung from his chair outside her door. Now he ran downstairs, and she heard bolt and chain clash at the kitchen door and his spurred boots land on the porch.
"Oh," she whimpered, snatching a blanket wrapper from a peg and struggling into it. "Oh, the poor house! Jack! Jack! I'm coming to help! Don't risk your life! I'm coming — I'm coming——"
Terror clutched her as she stumbled downstairs on bandaged feet.
As she reached the door a great flare of light almost blinded her.
"Jack!"
And at the same instant she saw him struggling with three masked men in the glare of the wagon-shed afire.
His rifle stood in the corridor outside her door. With one bound she was on the stairs again. There came the crash and splinter of wood and glass from the kitchen, and a man with a handkerchief over his face caught her on the landing.
Twice she wrenched herself loose and her fingers almost touched Stormont's rifle; she fought like a cornered lynx, tore the handkerchief from her assailant's face, recognised Quintana, hurled her very body at him, eyes flaming, small teeth bared.
Two other men laid hold. In another moment she had tripped Quintana, and all four fell, rolling over and over down the short flight of stairs, landing in the kitchen, still fighting.
Here, in darkness, she wriggled out, somehow, leaving her blanket wrapped in their clutches. In another instant she was up the stairs again, only to discover that the rifle was gone.