We have already seen that it formed a part of their plan of assault that some of the parties should quarrel and fight--the confusion thus produced being the opportunity of the assault. And the scheme was not departed from on this occasion. In the heat of the pretended _mêlée_ the little old woman, who had interfered on behalf of Burke, because he had been "kind to her," was cast down by force, for she had not drunk so much as they wanted her to do, and by keeping her senses had driven them to the necessity of the fighting prelude. This was the sign. The women, in the knowledge of the approaching struggle, hurry out of the room. At the very moment, Burke throws himself, with all the desperation of his purpose, on the body of the prostrate woman, clutching her by the throat, while his companion, bounding to his help, joins his energies in the old way, so that by the combination of powers utterly beyond resistance, she was held for full fifteen minutes, until, amidst the silence of deep hush and listening, they thought her dead. Not yet. They were deceived: there was more life than they counted upon in the little old woman, and the signs of reaction, as nature vindicated her guardship of the spirit, challenged a further effort. The weight and compression were renewed, and continued till there could be no doubt. The little old woman was dead, and in an instant after doubled up and thrown among a parcel of straw there for the purpose, in a corner of the room, between the foot of the bed and the wall.