on was soon taken from this by a volley
from the antechamber to the right which opened into the old throne
room. The men rallied well and followed at their heels as they pressed
through the door. They found here some twenty men. Wilson had emptied
his revolver and found no time in which to reload.

He hurled himself upon the first man he saw and the two fell to the
floor where they tumbled about like small boys in a street fight. They
kicked and squirmed and reached for each other's throats until they
rolled into the anteroom where they were left alone to fight it out.
Wilson made his feet and the other followed as nimbly as a cat. Then
the two faced each other. The humor of the situation steadied Wilson
for a moment. Shot after shot was ringing through the old building,
men fighting for their lives with modern rifles, and yet here he stood
driven back to a savage, elemental contest with bare fists in a room
built a century before. It was almost as though he had suddenly been
thrust out of the present into the past. But the struggle was none the
less serious.

His opponent rushed and Wilson met him with a blow which landed
between the eyes. It staggered him. Wilson closed with him, but he
felt a pair of strong arms tightening about the small of his back. In
spite of all he could do, he felt himself break. He fell. The fellow
had his throat in a second. He twisted and squirmed but to no purpose.
He tried a dozen old wrestling tricks, but the fingers only tightened
the firmer. Cheek against cheek the two lay and the fingers with
fierce zeal sank deeper and deeper into Wilson's throat. He strained
his breast in the attempt to catch a single breath. He saw the
stuccoed ceiling above him slowly blur and fade. The man's weight
pressed with cruel insistence until it seemed as though he were
supporting the whole building. He heard his deep gulping breathing,
felt his hot breath against his neck.

The situation grew maddening because of his helplessness, then
terrifying. Was he going to die here in an anteroom at the hands of
this common soldier? Was he going to be strangled like a clerk at the
hands of a footpad? Was the end coming here, within perhaps a hundred
yards of Jo? He threw every ounce in him into a final effort to throw
off this demon. The fellow, with legs wide apart, remained immovable
save spasmodically to take a tighter grip.

The sounds were growing far away. Then he heard his name called and
knew that Stub