gainst the passage wall.

"The Emperor's arm shakes, it seems," said Wogan, with a laugh. The
leader of the party, thrust forward by those behind him, was lifted to
the forbidden step.

"I warned you," cried Wogan, and his sword darted out. But whether from
design or accident, the man uttered a cry and stumbled forward on his
face. Wogan's sword flashed over his shoulder, and its point sank into
the throat of the soldier behind him. That second soldier fell back,
with the blood spurting from his wound, upon the man with the smoking
pistol, who thrust him aside with an oath.

"Make room," he cried, and lunged over the fallen leader.

"Here's a fellow in the most desperate hurry," said Wogan, and parrying
the thrust he disengaged, circled, disengaged again, and lunging felt
the soldier's leather coat yield to his point. "The Emperor's arm is
weak, too, one might believe," he laughed, and he drove his sword home.
The man fell upon the stairs; but as Wogan spoke the leader crouched on
the step plucked violently at his cloak below his knees. Wogan had not
recovered from his lunge; the jerk at the cloak threw him off his
balance, his legs slipped forward under him, in another moment he would
have come crashing down the stairs upon his back, and at the bottom of
the flight there stood one man absolutely unharmed supporting his
comrade who had been wounded in the throat. Wogan felt the jerk,
understood the danger, and saw its remedy at the same instant. He did
not resist the impetus, he threw his body into it, he sprang from the
stairs forwards, tearing his cloak from the leader's hands, he sprang
across the leader, across the soldier who had fired at him, and he
dropped with all his weight into the arms of the third man with the
pierced throat. The blood poured out from the wound over Wogan's face
and breast in a blinding jet. The fellow uttered one choking cry and
reeling back carried the comrade who supported him against the
balustrade at the turn of the stairs. Wogan did not give that fourth man
time to disengage himself, but dropping his sword caught him by the
throat as the third wounded man slipped between them to the ground.
Wogan bent his new opponent backwards over the balustrade, and felt the
muscles of his back resist and then slacken. Wogan bent him further and
further over until it seemed his back must break. But it was the
balustrade which broke. Wogan heard it crack. He had just time to loose
his hands and s