Jennifer outran me to the door by half a length, and fell to hammering
fiercely on the panel with the pommel of his broadsword.

"Open! Mr. Stair; open!" he shouted, between the batterings; but it was
five full minutes before the fan-light overhead began to show some faint
glimmerings of a candle coming from the rooms beyond.

Richard rested at that, and in the pause a thin voice shrilled from
within.

"Be off, you runagates! Off, I say! or I fire upon ye through the door!"

Giving no heed to the threat, Dick set up his clamor again, calling out
his name, and bidding the old man open to a friend. In some notching of
the hubbub I heard the unmistakable click of a gun-flint on steel. There
was barely time to trip my reckless batterer and to fall flat with him
on the door-stone when a gun went off within, and a handful of slugs,
breaching the oaken panel at the height of a man's middle, went
screeching over us.

Before I knew what he would be at, Richard was up with an oath, backing
off to hurl himself, shoulder on, against the door. It gave with a
splintering crash, letting him in headlong. I followed less hastily. It
was as black as a setter's mouth within, the gun fire having snuffed the
old man's candle out. But we had flint and steel and tinder-box, and
when the punk was alight, Jennifer found the candle under foot and gave
it me. It took fire with a fizzing like a rocket fuse, and was well
blackened with gunpowder. When the flint had failed to bring the firing
spark, the old man had set his piece off with the candle flame.