I groped about among the pots and brushes, and found a candle-end, which I lit. I was running a risk, but it was necessary to inspect our ground. I had never troubled really to examine this stable before, and I wished to put myself in touch with its geography.
I blew out the candle, well content with what I had seen. The only two windows were small, high up, and excellently barred. Even if the enemy fired through them there were half a dozen spots where we should be perfectly safe. Best of all, in the event of the door being carried by assault, we had a second line of defence in a loft. A ladder against the back wall led to it, by way of a trap-door. Circumstances had certainly been kind to us in driving us to this apparently impregnable shelter.
On concluding my inspection, I became aware that the Nugget was still occupied with his grievances. I think the shots must have stimulated his nerve centres, for he had abandoned the languid drawl with which, in happier moments, he was wont to comment on life’s happenings, and was dealing with the situation with a staccato briskness.
‘Of all the darned fool lay-outs I ever struck, this is the limit. What do those idiots think they’re doing, shooting us up that way? It went within an inch of my head. It might have killed me. Gee, and I’m all wet. I’m catching cold. It’s all through your blamed foolishness, bringing us out here. Why couldn’t we stay in the house?’
‘We could not have kept them out of the house for five minutes,’ I explained. ‘We can hold this place.’
‘Who wants to hold it? I don’t. What does it matter if they do get me? -I- don’t care. I’ve a good mind to walk straight out through that door and let them rope me in. It would serve Dad right. It would teach him not to send me away from home to any darned school again. What did he want to do it for? I was all right where I was. I–‘
A loud hammering on the door cut off his eloquence. The intermission was over, and the second round had begun.
It was pitch dark in the stable now that I had blown out the candle, and there is something about a combination of noise and darkness which tries the nerves. If mine had remained steady, I should have ignored the hammering. From the sound, it appeared to be made by some wooden instrument–a mallet from the carpenter’s shop I discovered later–and the door could be relied on to hold its own without my intervention. For a novice to violence, however, to maintain a state of calm inaction is the most difficult feat of all. I was irritated and worried by the noise, and exaggerated its importance. It seemed to me that it must be stopped at once.
A moment before, I had bruised my shins against an empty packing-case, which had found its way with other lumber into the stable. I groped for this, swung it noiselessly into position beneath the window, and, standing on it, looked out. I found the catch of the window, and opened it. There was nothing to be seen, but the sound of the hammering became more distinct; and pushing an arm through the bars, I emptied my pistol at a venture.
As a practical move, the action had flaws. The shots cannot have gone anywhere near their vague target. But as a demonstration, it was a wonderful success. The yard became suddenly full of dancing bullets. They struck the flagstones, bounded off, chipped the bricks of the far wall, ricocheted from those, buzzed in all directions, and generally behaved in a manner calculated to unman the stoutest hearted.
The siege-party did not stop to argue. They stampeded as one man. I could hear them clattering across the flagstones to every point of the compass. In a few seconds silence prevailed, broken only by the swish of the rain. Round two had been brief, hardly worthy to be called a round at all, and, like round one, it had ended wholly in our favour.