The House of a Thousand Candles - Meredith Nicholson (top 50 books to read txt) 📗

nine points of the fight, and we’ve

got the house.”

 

“Also a prisoner of war,” said Larry, grinning.

 

The English detective had smashed the glass in the

barred window of the potato cellar and we could hear

him howling and cursing below.

 

“Looks like business this time!” exclaimed Larry.

“Spread out now and the first head that sticks over the

balustrade gets a dose of hickory.”

 

When twenty-five yards from the terrace the advancing

party divided, half halting between us and the

water-tower and the remainder swinging around the

house toward the front entrance.

 

“Ah, look at that!” yelled Larry. “It’s a battering-ram

they have. O man of peace! have I your Majesty’s

consent to try the elephant guns now?”

 

Morgan and the sheriff carried between them a stick

of timber from which the branches had been cut, and,

with a third man to help, they ran it up the steps and

against the door with a crash that came booming back

through the house.

 

Bates was already bounding up the front stairway, a

revolver in his hand and a look of supreme rage on his

face. Leaving Stoddard and Larry to watch the library

windows, I was after him, and we clattered over the loose

boards in the upper hall and into a great unfinished

chamber immediately over the entrance. Bates had the

window up when I reached him and was well out upon

the coping, yelling a warning to the men below.

 

He had his revolver up to shoot, and when I caught

his arm he turned to me with a look of anger and indignation

I had never expected to see on his colorless, mask-like

face.

 

“My God, sir! That door was his pride, sir—it came

from a famous house in England, and they’re wrecking

it, sir, as though it were common pine.”

 

He tore himself free of my grasp as the besiegers

again launched their battering-ram against the door

with a frightful crash, and his revolver cracked smartly

thrice, as he bent far out with one hand clinging to

the window frame.

 

His shots were a signal for a sharp reply from one of

the men below, and I felt Bates start, and pulled him

in, the blood streaming from his face.

 

“It’s all right, sir—all right—only a cut across my

cheek, sir,”—and another bullet smashed through the

glass, spurting plaster dust from the wall. A fierce

onslaught below caused a tremendous crash to echo

through the house, and I heard firing on the opposite

side, where the enemy’s reserve was waiting.

 

Bates, with a handkerchief to his face, protested that

he was unhurt.

 

“Come below; there’s nothing to be gained here,”—.

and I ran down to the hall, where Stoddard stood, leaning

upon his club like a Hercules and coolly watching

the door as it leaped and shook under the repeated blows

of the besiegers.

 

A gun roared again at the side of the house, and I ran

to the library, where Larry had pushed furniture against

all the long windows save one, which he held open. He

stepped out upon the terrace and emptied a revolver at

the men who were now creeping along the edge of the

ravine beneath us. One of them stopped and discharged

a rifle at us with deliberate aim. The ball snapped snow

from the balustrade and screamed away harmlessly.

 

“Bah, such monkeys!” he muttered. “I believe I’ve

hit that chap!” One man had fallen and lay howling

in the ravine, his hand to his thigh, while his comrades

paused, demoralized.

 

“Serves you right, you blackguard!” Larry muttered.

 

I pulled him in and we jammed a cabinet against the

door.

 

Meanwhile the blows at the front continued with increasing

violence. Stoddard still stood where I had left

him. Bates was not in sight, but the barking of a revolver

above showed that he had returned to the window

to take vengeance on his enemies.

 

Stoddard shook his head in deprecation.

 

“They fired first—we can’t do less than get back at

them,” I said, between the blows of the battering-ram.

 

A panel of the great oak door now splintered in, but

in their fear that we might use the opening as a

loophole, they scampered out into range of Bates’ revolver.

In return we heard a rain of small shot on the

upper windows, and a few seconds later Larry shouted

that the flanking party was again at the terrace.

 

This movement evidently heartened the sheriff, for,

under a fire from Bates, his men rushed up and the log

crashed again into the door, shaking it free of the upper

hinges. The lower fastenings were wrenched loose an

instant later, and the men came tumbling into the hall,

—the sheriff, Morgan and four others I had never seen

before. Simultaneously the flanking party reached the

terrace and were smashing the small panes of the French

windows. We could hear the glass crack and tinkle

above the confusion at the door.

 

In the hall he was certainly a lucky man who held to

his weapon a moment after the door tumbled in. I

blazed at the sheriff with my revolver as he stumbled

and half-fell at the threshold, so that the ball passed

over him, but he gripped me by the legs and had me

prone and half-dazed by the rap of my head on the floor.

 

I suppose I was two or three minutes, at least, getting

my wits. I was first conscious of Bates grappling the

sheriff, who sat upon me, and as they struggled with each

other I got the full benefit of their combined, swerving,

tossing weight. Morgan and Larry were trying for a

chance at each other with revolvers, while Morgan

backed the Irishman slowly toward the library. Stoddard

had seized one of the unknown deputies with both

hands by the collar and gave his captive a tremendous

swing, jerking him high in the air and driving him

against another invader with a blow that knocked both

fellows spinning into a corner.

 

“Come on to the library!” shouted Larry, and Bates,

who had got me to my feet, dragged me down the hall

toward the open library-door.

 

Bates presented at this moment an extraordinary appearance,

with the blood from the scratch on his face

coursing down his cheek and upon his shoulder. His

coat and shirt had been torn away and the blood was

smeared over his breast. The fury and indignation in

his face was something I hope not to see again in a human

countenance.

 

“My God, this room—this beautiful room!” I heard

him cry, as he pushed me before him into the library.

“It was Mr. Glenarm’s pride,” he muttered, and sprang

upon a burly fellow who had came in through one of

the library doors and was climbing over the long table

we had set up as a barricade.

 

We were now between two fires. The sheriff’s party

had fought valiantly to keep us out of the library, and

now that we were within, Stoddard’s big shoulders held

the door half-closed against the combined strength of

the men in the ball. This pause was fortunate, for it

gave us an opportunity to deal singly with the fellows

who were climbing in from the terrace. Bates had laid

one of them low with a club and Larry disposed of another,

who had made a murderous effort to stick a knife

into him. I was with Stoddard against the door, where

the sheriff’s men were slowly gaining upon us.

 

“Let go on the jump when I say three,” said

Stoddard, and at his word we sprang away from the

door and into the room. Larry yelled with joy as the

sheriff and his men pitched forward and sprawled upon

the floor, and we were at it again in a hand-to-hand conflict

to clear the room.

 

“Hold that position, sir,” yelled Bates.

 

Morgan had directed the attack against me and I was

driven upon the hearth before the great fireplace. The

sheriff, Morgan and Ferguson hemmed me in. It was

evident that I was the chief culprit, and they wished to

eliminate me from the contest. Across the room, Larry,

Stoddard and Bates were engaged in a lively rough and

tumble with the rest of the besiegers, and Stoddard, seeing

my plight, leaped the overturned table, broke past

the trio and stood at my side, swinging a chair.

 

At that moment my eyes, sweeping the outer doors,

saw the face of Pickering. He had come to see that his

orders were obeyed, and I remember yet my satisfaction,

as, hemmed in by the men he had hired to kill me

or drive me out, I felt, rather than saw, the cowardly

horror depicted upon his face.

 

Then the trio pressed in upon me. As I threw down

my club and drew my revolver, some one across the

room fired several shots, whose roar through the room

seemed to arrest the fight for an instant, and then, while

Stoddard stood at my side swinging his chair defensively,

the great chandelier, loosened or broken by the shots,

fell with a mighty crash of its crystal pendants. The

sheriff, leaping away from Stoddard’s club, was struck

on the head and borne down by the heavy glass.

 

Smoke from the firing floated in clouds across the

room, and there was a moment’s silence save for the

sheriff, who was groaning and cursing under the debris

of the chandelier. At the door Pickering’s face appeared

again anxious and frightened. I think the scene

in the room and the slow progress his men were making

against us had half-paralyzed him.

 

We were all getting our second wind for a renewal

of the fight, with Morgan in command of the enemy.

One or two of his men, who had gone down early in the

struggle, were now crawling back for revenge. I think

I must have raised my hand and pointed at Pickering,

for Bates wheeled like a flash and before I realized what

happened he had dragged the executor into the room.

 

“You scoundrel—you ingrate!” howled the servant.

 

The blood on his face and bare chest and the hatred

in his eves made him a hideous object; but in that lull

of the storm while we waited, watching for an advantage,

I heard off somewhere, above or below, that same

sound of footsteps that I had remarked before. Larry

and Stoddard heard it; Bates heard it, and his eyes fixed

upon Pickering with a glare of malicious delight.

 

“There comes our old friend, the ghost,” yelled Larry.

 

“I think you are quite right, sir,” said Bates. He

threw down the revolver he held in his hand and leaned

upon the edge of the long table that lay on its side, his

gaze still bent on Pickering, who stood with his overcoat

buttoned close, his derby hat on the floor beside him,

where it had fallen as Bates hauled him into the room.

 

The sound of a measured step, of some one walking,

of a careful foot on a stairway, was quite distinct. I even

remarked the slight stumble that I had noticed before.

 

We were all so intent on those steps in the wall that

we were off guard. I heard Bates yell at me, and Larry

and Stoddard rushed for Pickering. He had drawn a

revolver from his overcoat pocket and thrown it up to

fire at me when Stoddard sent the weapon flying through

the air.

 

“Only a moment now, gentlemen,” said Bates, an odd

smile on his face. He was looking past me toward the

right end of the fireplace. There seemed to be in the

air a feeling of something impending. Even Morgan

and