"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.