Hector sprang up, closely followed by the others.  The resistance was feeble, for the height above the winding steps was but six feet, and insufficient for the use of either axes or longer weapons.  Many of the peasants, astounded at seeing the armed men mounting from below them, and wholly ignorant of their numbers, threw down their weapons and cried for mercy.  Hector contented himself with pushing past them, and running his sword through any who showed signs of resistance.  One or two men armed with rough pikes made a stand; these he shot, and pressed upwards until within some twenty feet of the top, when the peasants, half maddened at finding themselves caught, rushed down in a body.  “Close up!” he shouted to his followers.  These pressed close up to him, but the weight was too much for them, and they were borne by the rush backwards down the stairs, when the peasants darted out through the door.  Hector had received several knife cuts on the shoulder and arms, and would have suffered still more severely had not Paolo and Nicholl, who were next to him, thrust their pistols over his shoulder and shot his assailants, whose bodies, borne along by the pressure from behind, protected him from the blows of those above them.

“Are you hurt badly, master?” Paolo exclaimed as they stood breathless for a moment at the bottom of the stairs.

“No, I think not; my gorget saved my neck; I have four or five cuts on the shoulders, but they are mere flesh wounds.  Now let us mount the stairs; the men must have made a stout defence indeed to have held out so long.”

The upper part of the stairs was indeed almost blocked with dead bodies.  At the top of the stairs stood two men with axes, which they lowered as soon as they saw Hector.

“You have made a brave stand,” he said, “in defence of your mistress.”

“You have arrived but just in time, monsieur, for we are the last two left, and though we might have accounted for a few more, another five minutes would have finished it.”

Stepping out on the platform at the top of the tower, Hector saw a lady leaning against the battlements; she was deadly pale, but her face still bore a look of calm determination.  In her hands she held a dagger; clinging to her was a girl of some fifteen years of age.

“Thank God, madam, that we have arrived in time!” Hector exclaimed.

“Just in time, monsieur; we had given up all hope, when, as if sent by God, we saw your little band appear riding towards us.  Even then I hardly ventured to hope; it seemed well nigh impossible that six men should be able to clear a way through so many.  Only two of my faithful retainers still held the stairs, and it was but too evident that these could not resist much longer; when one more had fallen I had resolved to plunge this dagger into my daughter’s heart and then into my own.  Death would have been a thousand times preferable to falling into the hands of these wretches.”