She stood, pointing at him, her face ablaze, her eyes hard and cruel. Dan was feeling the bar warily with his hand, grinning and showing his yellow fangs, and looking at Bess like a hungry animal.
“Let me in, wench,” he said.
Bess eyed him and fingered her pistol.
“Let you in, Dan! The stair door’s bolted and the bar is up. Come at me—if you can—you coward.”
There was a sudden splintering of wood as the bar was forced in by the man’s powerful arm. He lifted his chest to the sill, and hung there straining and panting, working with his knees and feet against the wall. Bess could hear Isaac beating upon the door that closed the staircase. She moved quite close to Dan, and pointed her pistol at his head.
“Stop, or I’ll kill ye!”
Dan gave a great heave and brought his knees up on the sill. Bess fired at him on the instant, and sprang back towards the door. The ball whipped off the lobe of Dan’s right ear, the charge blackening and scorching his face. The shock lost him his balance. Bess saw him clutch at the casement frame, and go tumbling down, tearing the lattice with him as he fell. Awed for the moment, she stepped to the window and saw Dan lying in a black heap under the ladder that had toppled down on him. From below came old Ursula’s cries and Isaac’s cursing. Bess heard the cottage door open. Footsteps came through the garden under the trees. Isaac’s white head gleamed in the moonlight as he ran forward and pulled the ladder from off Dan’s body.
Bess turned to the cupboard in the corner of the room, and took out the second pistol Jeffray had given her. She went to the window again and looked out. Isaac had his arms under Dan’s shoulders; the old man was kneeling and supporting his son’s body, questioning him in a shrill, fierce voice as to whether he was badly hurt. Dan was little the worse save for a strained back and a torn ear. He scrambled up stupidly with his hand to his head, and stood looking up at Bess with savage spite in his eyes.
“Thank the Lord, you she-dog,” shouted old Isaac, his mouth working like the mouth of a man in pain, “the shot went wide of the lad’s head.”
Ursula, who had hobbled round, laid a hand on her brother’s shoulder.