The bitter smoke drifted from doorway to doorway through the dark. Hemming got his sword from his bedroom, and he and O'Rourke waited at the top of the stairs.
O'Rourke's heart was glad within him. Shoulder to shoulder with a man like Hemming, it would be a lovely fight. The door could not give in soon enough to suit him. He had ten shots in his revolvers. Then he could break a few heads with his clubbed rifle, surely, and, after that, when they had him down, he could kick for awhile. He did not think of his parents in the North, his friends, his half-written articles, nor his creditors. But he was sorry that Miss Hudson would never hear of his heroic finish.
"We have had some fun together, and I hope this will not be the last," said Hemming. They shook hands. Then the door came in with a rending, sidelong fall. A bunch of men sprang across it and made for the staircase, just discernible to them by the light from the doorway.
"THE DOOR CAME IN WITH A RENDING, SIDELONG FALL"
"Fire into the brown," said Hemming, quietly.
The four revolvers jumped and spit—once—twice—and the wounded slipped back against their comrades' legs. More men entered the hall below, and filed wildly into the darkness above and around. Then Hicks, Santosa, and Smith left their windows and pumped lead into the housebreakers. The noise was deafening. The air was unfit to breathe. O'Rourke wondered at something hot and wet against his leg. Hemming was angry because none would come within cutting distance. Smith felt very sick, but did not mention the fact. He knelt against the bannisters, and fumbled with the hammer of his revolver, and the blood from a great furrow in his neck ran down one of the polished rounds that supported the carved hand-rail. But it was dark, and he could not see it. But presently he dropped his revolver and felt the blood with his fingers, and wondered, in a dim way, who it was dared to make such a mess in Mr. Tetson's house.
The firing outside the house, which had died away for a minute, increased suddenly, and cries of warning and consternation rang above it. More men came to the open doorway. They were armed with rifles instead of the short carbines of the Pernamba army. They discharged a volley or two into the backs of the scrambling soldiers on the stairs.
"That ends the revolution," remarked Hemming, calmly, removing his monocle from his eye.