The wall swayed in a piece and quivered a moment on the verge ere it fell with a prodigious crash upon the straggling file of men in the deep defile below. A hoarse, confused cry was heard, running up, as the pursuers too late recognized their danger, into a shriek of agony. Then a thick cloud of dust and sand arose, which prevented those in the redoubt from seeing the effect of their stratagem. Presently from the gap they could see a few limping stragglers disentangle their disabled bodies from the ruins, and make haste to put as much space as possible between themselves and the unseen dangers which beset them on every side on these wide, unwholesome dunes. The Little Marie stood erect in the breach. She held her pistols in her hand and marked down the survivors as they ran. "Let them go, Marie," cried Wat; "they are powerless to harm us now!" Wat's heart was a little turned to pity by the wholesale destruction wrought beneath his eyes by the falling of the wall; but Marie's eyes only glistened the more brightly with excitement and the light of battle. "But they are _your_ enemies, my captain!" said Marie, evidently surprised at his words. Then very coolly she went on loading her pistols. "Stand down, Marie," cried Wat, "or they will surely do you an injury. I saw a man's head behind yon highest dune." "I care not so be they kill me outright. I do not want to be only wounded," answered the Little Marie, laughing recklessly. Nevertheless, she began obediently to descend. Wat's warning came too late. Haxo himself, full of bitterness and foaming with the desire for vengeance, had managed to limp near enough to witness the destruction of his men in the defile. While the girl was priming her pistols, he had taken careful aim. Now he fired. Marie gave a low, quick cry and put her hand to her breast to feel where the wound was. Then she steadied herself and attempted to go on with the preparation of her pistol. But with a little moan of pain she sank back into Wat's arms, who gently laid her down in the shade of the wall. Scarlett brought her water in the brim of his broad hat. He sprinkled it on her face. A brief examination showed that Haxo's bullet had struck the girl an inch above the left breast. Scarlett and Wat looked squarely at each other. The significance of that single glance was not lost on the Little Marie. A bright look of manifest joy instantly overspread her face. "I am glad--very glad," she said, fighting a little with her utterance; "lift me up so that I may tell you. I am glad that I am to die. Yes, I know it. I wished nothing else. I tried so hard to die to-day, my captain, fighting your enemies; for I knew that I should never see you again, that you would sail away without a thought for the Little Marie who wrought so hard to take you out of prison. I knew that you were going to seek one whom you love, and that I could not come with you. But now I can keep you--keep you all, till it is time for me to go away."