I went into the kitchen and dropped on the window-seat to rest
for a moment. Suspense and excitement together were beginning to
tell upon me. The perspiration broke out thick on my forehead,
and I began to feel the bruises I had inflicted on my hands in
making the barricade against the front door. I had not lost a
particle of my resolution, but I was beginning to lose strength.
There was a bottle of rum in the cupboard, which my brother the
sailor had left with us the last time he was ashore. I drank a
drop of it. Never before or since have I put anything down my
throat that did me half so much good as that precious mouthful of
rum!

I was still sitting in the window-seat drying my face, when I
suddenly heard their voices close behind me.

They were feeling the outside of the window against which I was
sitting. It was protected, like all the other windows in the
cottage, by iron bars. I listened in dreadful suspense for the
sound of filing, but nothing of the sort was audible. They had
evidently reckoned on frightening me easily into letting them in,
and had come unprovided with house-breaking tools of any kind. A
fresh burst of oaths informed me that they had recognized the
obstacle of the iron bars. I listened breathlessly for some
warning of what they were going to do next, but their voices
seemed to die away in the distance. They were retreating from the
window. Were they also retreating from the house altogether? Had
they given up the idea of effecting an entrance in despair?

A long silence followed--a silence which tried my courage even