escaped
death, but he was frightened; with a cry of "Yagers! Rebellion! In God's
name!" he drew his sword, and, defending himself, he retreated to the
threshold.

Then on the other side of the room many of the gentry poured in through
the windows with swords, Switch at their head. In the hall Plut and Rykov
behind him were calling the soldiers; already the three nearest the house
were running to their aid; already three glittering bayonets were gliding
through the door, and behind them there were bent forward three black
helmets. Maciek stood by the door with his switch raised on high, and,
squeezing close to the wall, lay in wait for them as a cat for rats; then
he struck a fearful blow. Perhaps he would have felled three heads, but
the old man either had poor eyesight, or else he was too much wrought up;
since, before they put forward their necks, he smote on their helmets, and
stripped them off; the switch, falling, clinked on the bayonets.--The
Muscovites started back, and Maciek drove them out to the yard.

There the confusion was still worse. There the partisans of the Soplicas
vied with each other in setting free the Dobrzynskis by tearing apart the
beams. Seeing this, the yagers seized their arms and made for them; a
sergeant rushed ahead and transfixed Podhajski with a bayonet; he wounded
two others of the gentry and was shooting at a third; they fled: this was
close to the log in which Baptist was fastened. He already had his arms
free and ready for fight; he rose, lifted his hand with its long fingers
and clenched his fist; and from above he gave the Russian such a blow on
the back that he knocked his face and temples into the lock of his
carbine. The lock clicked, but the powder, moist with blood, did not
catch; the sergeant fell on his arms at the feet of Baptist. Baptist bent
down, seized the carbine by the barrel, and, brandishing it like his
sprinkling-brush, lifted it aloft; he whirled it about and straightway
smote two privates on the shoulders and gave a corporal a blow on the
head; the rest, terrified, recoiled in dismay from the log: thus Sprinkler
sheltered the gentry with a moving roof.

Then they pulled apart the logs and cut the cords; the gentry, once free,
descended upon the waggons of the Alms-Gatherer, and from them procured
swords, sabres, cutlasses, scythes, and guns. Bucket found two
blunderbusses and a bag of bullets; he poured some of these into his own
blunderbuss; the other gun he