He heard men moving cautiously, soft footfalls going pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat around the cabin, and it seemed to him a stray word of advice or caution now and then.
The silence was broken suddenly by a blaze of fire that seemed to come through the wall, a report that roared like a cannon in the cabin.

A spurt of smoke entered at one of the holes, and a bullet burled itself in the opposite wall.

A savage had boldly thrust the muzzle of his rifle into a loophole and fired.
"Be still, Paul," whispered Henry.

"They can't hit us, and they are wasting their ammunition." A second shot was tried by the besiegers, but the result was only the roaring, echoing report, the smoke and the flame, and the bullet that found a vain target of wood.

But to Paul, with an imagination fed by stories of mighty battles, it was like a cannonade.