Le Bon remembered dire alarms by night—

The swoop of savage hordes, the desperate fight

Of men outnumbered: and, like him of old,

In all that made Jules shudder as he told,

His the great part—a man by field and flood

Fate-tossed. Upon the gloom he limned in blood

Their situation’s possibilities:

Two men against the fury of the Rees—

A game in which two hundred men had failed!

He pointed out how little it availed