"Look out, Jim! Look out quick!" so a friend would have cried but it was too late.
While the men had all fled in utter fear, a woman was coming quickly to retrieve their reverse. "Red Annie," as she was known, strong, strident and feared by everyone within the castle, was on the trail. She was not to be fooled for an instant by this figure in armor. Noiseless as a lioness she crept up behind Jim and as he half turned to find another weapon to his hand he saw her, but not soon enough. With a mighty shove she sent him toppling down the stairs. However, Jim was able to partially save himself by gripping at the balustrade.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CRISIS
There was but one way of escape now and that was by the front entrance. Jim regained his feet but by the time he reached the lower hall, the woman had rallied the brown and white renegades with taunts and fierce ridicule, and they came again into the attack.
"Take him alive," cried the dwarf; "we will have some sport with him before he dies."
"I won't die till my time comes," mumbled Jim; "as for the sport, I'll have that myself."
There were at least twelve of the cutthroats who swarmed into the hall, some of them reënforcements, men who had been sleeping in other parts of the castle, and who had been aroused by the racket. Among them was a huge fellow with a bristling red mustache, close cropped black hair, and sinister dark eyes, all surface and no depth.