“What have you people brought upon us?” Greta asked as tears reddened her eyes. “Mein Gott, are we to die here?”

“Everyone dies, madam,” Julian replied without looking at her. “It is unfortunately a fact of life that most times we cannot choose our fate in that regard. I will say that if my last meal was your very fine chicken soup, I will not go wishing for better food.” At last he gazed down upon her and perhaps only Matthew saw the fleeting expression of sorrow that passed across his face. “My regrets,” he said. “But we’re not dead yet. Please reload that musket and afford me some gunpowder and bullets if you have a supply. Things may get hot here very soon.”

“I have bullets and extra flints.” Matthew took from his jacket the fringed pouch that had belonged to Bogen.

“I saw you fire your shot. You reload first and go man the back door. Madam, the musket and the powder?”

Greta hesitated, the shade of doom still upon her face, until Oliver urged her to go on and to hurry. She left the room. Matthew reloaded his pistol using a ball and a bit of cotton wadding from the pouch, then when Greta returned with the powder he applied the necessary amount for ignition and tamped everything down with the small ramrod that fit in a groove under the barrel.

He started for the back of the house when a voice came, eerily whipped up and down in volume by the whirlwind beyond the broken window.

“Your position,” Lash called, standing in the shelter of the coach, “is untenable! Shall we call an end to this nonsense?”

Firebaugh scrambled up from the floor and shouted, “Lash! Get me out of here!”

“Go to the back, Matthew,” Julian said quietly. “Be ready to reload.”

“Lash!” Firebaugh pushed his face toward the second window. “Help me!”

“Patience, Doctor!” the vice admiral answered. “All in good time.”

“They’re sending Corbett to the—”

Before Firebaugh could get that out, Julian was upon him. As Matthew was heading to the back, he saw Julian catch hold of the doctor’s banyan robe and swing him around with such violence that Firebaugh almost went into the flames of the hearth.

Matthew felt the chill of the wind blowing through the hallway, and he realized he was two steps and a moment too late.

Sandor Krakowski, wearing a brown corduroy coat and a woolen cap on his bald head, had just crept in through the back door. They saw each other at the same time, and at the same time swung their guns up and fired at a distance of twelve feet while they both twisted their bodies to avoid the bullets.