ove me, and immediately
after a cry from below. Through the narrow stairway lattice I could see
the uncertain flicker of flames lighting up the street. Men ran backward
across the open square, looking up as they ran. So by that I knew that
Helene had done her work, and was now watching the burning beacon, as the
flames flicked upward and clapped their fiery applausive palms.

But at the same moment, from the foot of the stairs, there came the loud
report of the explosion beneath the door of the Red Tower, the rumble of
stones, and then an eager rush of men to see what had been effected.

"Now for it!" I thought, as I gripped the Red Axe.

But it was not to be so soon. The iron bars, which my father had
engineered so that they sank deep into the wall on either side, still
held nobly, and I heard the loud voice crying again for a battering-ram.
The soldiers of the attacking party went scurrying across the yard, and
presently returned, carrying between them a young tree cleared of its
branches, but with the rough bark still upon it.

Without, in the square, the turmoil increased, and the streets echoed
with shouting. A wild hope came into my heart that Prince Karl had not
awaited the summons of the beacon, and that his troops were already in
the streets of Thorn. But even as the thought passed through my brain I
knew that it was vain.

On the other hand, it was evident that in the town the general alarm had
been given, for the trumpets blew from the ramparts of the Wolfsberg, and
the call to arms resounded incessantly in the court-yard. I doubted not
also that many a stout burgher was getting him under arms--and but few of
them to fight for the Duke.

Suddenly the bars of the door jangled on the stones under the swinging
blows of the battering-ram. I heard feet clatter on the stair. They came
with a rush, but long ere they had arrived at the top the pace slackened.
Only one man at a time could come up the stairway, and it is always a
drag upon the enthusiasm of an assault when at least two cannot advance
together. The light flickered and filtered in from the torches in the
streets, and the reflected glow of the bonfire on the roof made the
stair-head clear as a lucid twilight.

I waited, with the axe swinging loosely in one hand. A head bobbed up,
clad in a steel cap. Bat as the unseen feet propelled it upward the Red
Axe took little reck of the head. Betwixt the steel cap and the rim of
steel of the body armor appe