"I hope a German bullet may find him," muttered the old man, as the others released the stiff figure upon the bed. They kept on their knees to avoid the flying bullets, and so transferred the German from the larger bedstead to the low single bed on which the general had made the campaign of ’70. They placed it against the wall in the corner near the window, out of danger. Leaving Pierre on his knees to fire up if any German tried to enter the room through the window, they returned to the invalid’s bedroom. "Strange that they should be so reckless of killing their own officer," remarked Burton. "They are callous ruffians," the general replied. "Besides, it is war; one life is of little account. That is what we all have to remember. The individual life is nothing; the cause is all." The passage and the rooms were filling with suffocating fumes. The noise of shots, of splintering wood, of shouting men, was incessant. Hitherto, save for the single rifle shot fired by Burton, the defenders had not used their weapons. At the end of the passage they could not have escaped the hail of bullets; from the side doors they could not take direct aim. But the attack had now become so violent that reprisals must be attempted, or the defences would be utterly shattered. An idea came suddenly to Burton. Closing the door leading to the sick man’s room, so that the passage was completely dark, he passed into the next room, shoved a table through the doorway, set a chair upon it, and waiting until there was a slight lull in the attack, climbed upon the chair. Standing thus above the enemy’s line of fire, and in darkness, he was able to see, through the gaps made in the barricade and the door, a faint light filtering through from the lamp in the hall below. A crowd of Germans had come quite close to the door, and were thrusting their rifles through the jagged rents in the panels. Burton took careful aim at one of them, fired, and a yell proclaimed that his bullet had gone home. A second shot claimed its victim. Then the enemy, cursing with rage, rushed back from the door, and for a time continued firing from the angles of the landing. Meanwhile the window at which Pierre was left had been driven in, shutter and all, by repeated blows of an axe wielded by a man mounted on a ladder. The old man fired just as the German was stepping from the ladder to the window-sill. Shot through the heart, the intruder fell headlong. None of his comrades was bold enough to emulate his daring.