"No shootin', damn ye!" shouted a voice, hoarsely. "No shootin'; I want that Reb alive!"
Through the swirling smoke I recognized the malicious face of Red Lowrie as he pushed his way to the front. To me it was like a personal challenge to combat.
"Rush them!" I muttered into Brennan's ear. "Hurl them back a bit, and then dodge under into the next room."
I never waited to ascertain if he heard me. With one fierce spring I struck their stunned line, and my iron bar swept a clear space as it crashed remorselessly into them. The next instant Lowrie and I were seemingly alone and fronting each other. A wild cat enraged by pain looks as he did when he leaped to meet me. Hate, deadly, relentless, glared in his eyes, and with a yell of exultation he swung up his long rifle and struck savagely at my head with the stock. I caught it partially on my barrel, breaking its full force, and even as it descended upon my shoulder, jabbed the muzzle hard into his leering face. With a snarl of pain he dropped his gun and grappled with me, but as his fingers closed about my throat, something swirled down through the maze, and the maddened brute staggered back, his arms uplifted, his red beard cloven in twain.
"Now for it, Wayne!" shouted Brennan. "Back with you!"
With a dive I went under the piano. I heard the sliding doors shut behind us, and almost with the sound was again upon my feet.
"To the stairs!" I panted. "Brennan, take the women to the stairs; those fellows are not in the hallway yet, and we can hold them there a while."
In our terrible need for haste, and amid the thick, swirling smoke filling that inner room almost to suffocation, I grasped the woman chancing to be nearest me, without knowing at the moment who she was. Already the rifle-butts were splintering the light wood behind us into staves, and I hastily dragged my dazed companion forward. The others were in advance, and we groped our way like blind persons out into the hall. By rare good fortune it was yet unoccupied, and as we took the few hurried steps toward the foot of the stairs I found my arm was encircling Celia Minor. The depth of despair within her dark eyes, and the speechless anguish of her white face, swept for an instant the fierce rage of battle from my brain.