[THE MASKED LIGHT.]
CONCLUSION.
It was the enemy! we were completely trapped. The tables were turned upon us; yet, even as the fight was lost, we won it. Shots crossed and recrossed about me. One flash on my left showed me a man's face and the glitter of a bayonet as he thrust at me. I struck it on one side with the muzzle of my gun, firing point-blank into him as I parried it. As he dropped back another leaped up, stamping on him to gain me. He fired from the hip, and the powder singed my hair. I clubbed my musket and struck down at him, slipped on the bowlder, and down we crashed, clenched together, he, underneath, falling on his head twelve feet below. His arms relaxed and I rolled clear. By sheer instinct alone I kept flat, for men were now leaping down, while the shrill whistle of a leaden hailstorm passed over me.
For a moment I thought it was the end of us all; but out of the din I recognized a voice on our right calling shrilly: Chloe's voice. Our friends were reënforcing us from the ford. The attackers, caught on the flank, broke and fled. I rose up at last. The foot of the lighthouse just loomed faintly visible, and I saw the last of the enemy rush over the dark heap and gain the shelter of the building.
That dark heap was now linked to our position by a chain of dead and wounded men; their retreat had cost them more than the attack.
We had not escaped scatheless. Seven men killed outright, and nine wounded. Before we had time to move a single man to a more comfortable position, we were driven to the shelter of our rocks by a withering fire which broke out from every window and loophole of the chapel. We clung to the lee of the rocks. The air was dusty with chips and splinters of stone.
As I at last recovered my wits, I found that some one else was sheltering under the same rock. It was Chloe, all breathless, disheveled, and wringing wet.
"Take mine, capitan," she cried, on seeing me without a rifle. And she passed me a handful of cartridges from the bosom of her dress. I loaded in haste, but Henrico began to roar above the din that not a shot was to be fired. It was growing lighter every moment, and as yet the enemy could only aim by the line of the dead and wounded. But, for all that, the bombardment went on unceasingly.
Chloe, her breath recovered, was, despite her crouching position, tidying herself to something more woman-like. I asked her for the news. "Oh," she cried, "they found us, tumbled on us, but they paid!—one, two, three, four, five!" checking them off on her fingers. "Then we heard you. The sergeant knew you had been surprised—by the sound he knew. So, back came ten of us. He was just dying."
"Ah," I said.