"What is it, Radoub?"
"Have I earned a small reward?"
"Certainly. Ask what you will."
"Then I ask to be the first one to go up."
It was impossible to refuse him; besides, he would have gone without permission.
[XI.]
THE DESPERATE.
While these deliberations were in progress on the first floor, a barricade was going up overhead. If success inspires fury, defeat fills men with rage. The two stories were about to clash in wild frenzy. There is a sense of intoxication in the assurance of victory. The assailants below were buoyed up by hope, that most powerful incentive to human effort when it is not counteracted by despair. All the despair was above,—calm, cold, and gloomy despair. When they reached this hall of refuge, their last resource, they proceeded first of all to bar the entrance, and in order to accomplish this object they decided that the blockading of the staircase would be more effectual than barring the door. Under such circumstances an obstacle through which one can both see what is going on and fight at the same time is a better defence than a closed door.
All the light they had, came from the torch which Imânus had stuck in the holder on the wall near the sulphur match.