At the first tap of the drum they had all drawn together like a swarm of bees, buzzing angrily; then shrieking, and hurling stones, they rushed upon us. After a fierce struggle we pushed them back, and succeeded in forcing the doors of the cellar under a hail of tiles and billets of wood from the upper windows, in spite of which we made our entrance good, and then had time to breathe and count our wounded. Poor old Gangnot had lost another finger, and Calabre’s right eye was badly injured; for me, I had caught my thumb in the hinge of the door-flap, as I banged it shut; and by my faith, it turned me sick and faint like a woman. Fortunately there was an open keg of brandy close at hand, and after I had swallowed a dram and bathed my thumb in some of the same, my head ceased to go round; but as the fight went on, the pain made me as mad as a tiger. By this time we were inside, and all struggling together on the stairs leading from the house to the cellar, and I felt that we could not keep this up long, as these devils were discharging their muskets, close into our very faces, so that they set Saulsoy’s beard on fire, and Gueurlu had to squeeze it out between his hard hands. Luckily the rioters were too drunk to shoot straight, or we none of us would have come out of it alive. I could see also that we had an ally in the fire, which was creeping round the court from wing to wing, toward the main building where we were; so when we had retreated to the topmost step, some of us stood firm, while the rest hastily raised a barrier of loose stones and rubbish, reaching to the lintel of the doorway. Through the chinks we stuck our pikes and lances, like the quills of a porcupine. “Now,” cried I, “those who like fire, will soon have plenty of it!” The cellars were full of men, for the most part too drunk to realize their danger; but when the flames appeared through the cracks of the walls and began to eat away the beams of the roof, it was a perfect pandemonium of yells and curses, and like bubbling wine in a vat they rose to the surface, and made a rush for our staircase. Some of the foremost, with their clothes actually on fire, were crushed against our barricade by the weight of those behind them, and their bodies filled the doorway from side to side, like a cork in a bottle. It was horrible to see; and also to hear the fire raging and roaring! If I had been just then the simple Breugnon of everyday life, I should have tried to save the poor screaming wretches, but when a man is in authority, he must think of nothing outside of his duty; compassion at that crisis would have been sheer weakness. I knew that the safety of the city hung on the defeat of these brigands, for if they had escaped they would have outnumbered our small forces, and with the fear of the gallows before their eyes, would have fought to desperation. No, there was now nothing for it but to smoke the wasps out of their nest.