"Sorden," Van Dorn said, slipping down, "can Ransom have betrayed us? Chis! they all look as if a death-warrant was being read."

"My skin! No, Captain. Air they all there?"

"All," said Van Dorn; "I see thirty thousand dollars of flesh in sight."

"And niggers won't scrimmage nohow," spoke Whitecar. "Let's beat 'em mos' to death."

"Come on then," said Van Dorn, softly; "if the windows are not lifted, break them in."

He twisted, by main strength, a panel out of the palings near the house, and led the way to the great front door. A dozen desperate hands seized the heavy panel and ran with it. The door flew open, but at that moment every light in Cowgill House went out.

"Dar's ghosts in dar," the hoarse voice of Derrick Molleston was heard to say, and the negro element stopped and shrank.

"Tindel, your torch!" Van Dorn exclaimed, and, after a moment's delay - the old house and shady yard meantime illumined by lightning, and sounds of thunder rolling in the sky - a blazing pine-knot, all prepared, was procured, and Van Dorn, holding it in his left hand, and with nothing but his rude whip in his right, bounded in the door, shouting:

"Patty Cannon has come!"

At that dreaded name there were a few suppressed shrieks, and the great windows at the gable side fell inwards with a crash as the kidnappers came pouring over.

Van Dorn's quick eye took in the situation as he waved his torch, and it lighted ceiling and pilaster, the close-fastened doors on the left and the great stairway-well beyond, filled with black forms in the attitude of defence.

"Patty Cannon has come!" he shouted again; "follow me!"

An instant only brought him to the base of the staircase, and the lightning flashing in the gaping windows and fallen door revealed him to his followers, with his yellow hair waving, and his long, silken mustache like golden flame.

A mighty yell rose from the emboldened gang as they formed behind him, with bludgeons and iron knuckles, billies and slings, and whatever would disable but fail to kill.

Van Dorn, far ahead, made three murderous slashes of his whip across the human objects above, and, with a toss of that formidable weapon, clubbed it and darted on.

At the moment loud explosions and smoke and cries filled the echoing place, as a volley of firearms burst from the landing, sweeping the line of the windows and raking the hall. The band on the floor below stopped, and some were down, groaning and cursing.

"They're armed; it's treachery," a voice, in panic, cried, and the cowardly assailants ran to places of refuge, some crawling out at the portal, some dropping from the windows, and others getting behind the stairway, out of fire, and seeking desperately to draw the bolts of the smaller door there.

"Patty Cannon has come!" Van Dorn repeated, throwing himself into the body of the defenders, who, terrified at his bravery, began to retreat upward around the angles of the stairs.

One man, however, did not retreat, neither did he strike, but wrapped Van Dorn around the body in a pair of long and powerful arms, and lifted him from the landing by main strength, saying: