After hesitating for a moment he ran along and, soon coming, as he expected, to an open window, he at once climbed through it.

A door was open and, passing on, he entered a large hall in which a light was burning.
Pausing to listen now, he heard voices upstairs and, holding a pistol in each hand and his drawn sword in his teeth, he lightly ascended the stairs.

On the landing two men lay dead.

Light was issuing from a half-closed door and, noiselessly approaching it, he looked in.
It was a small room.

At the end stood eight or ten scared women, huddled together; while a soldier, with a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other, stood sentry over them.