This he saw quivering under repeated blows.
With brusque decision he said: "Get a chair--brace it beneath the
door-knob, please!"--and leaving her without more explanation turned back
to the fireplace.
Motionless, in dumb confusion, the girl stood staring after him till roused
by a blow of such splintering force as to suggest that an axe had been
brought into play upon the door, then ran to a ponderous club chair and
with considerable exertion managed to trundle it to the door and tip it
over, wedging its back beneath the knob.
By this time it had become indisputably patent that an axe was battering
the panels. But the door, in character with the room, was a substantial
piece of workmanship and needed more than a few blows, even of an axe, to
break down its barrier of solid oak.
She looked round to discover Lanyard kneeling beside Ekstrom, insanely--so
it seemed to the girl--engaged in blackening the upper half of the man's
face with a handful of soot.
Unconsciously uttering a little cry of distress she sped to his side and
caught his shoulder with an importunate hand.
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