Though my men were heavily outnumbered, the enemy could not guess how few we were. Moreover, we had the shelter of the trees, and our fire had their windows to converge upon. We held them, therefore, with no great loss, except for those that fell in the first onslaught, which was bloody for both sides. Presently a tongue of flame shot up, and I knew that they had set fire to one of the houses on the lane. The shouting there, and the yelling, died away, but a scattering crackle of musketry continued. Then another building burst into flame. The night grew all one red, wavering glare. As the smoke clouds blew this way and that, the shadows rose and fell. The squalls of drift blurred everything; but in the lulls men stood out suddenly as simple targets, and were shot with great precision. Yet we had shelter enough, too; for every house, every barn and shed, cast a block of thick darkness on its northern side. Then men began to gather in upon the centre. Here a squad of my own fellows--yelling and cheering with triumph, if they were Indians, quietly exultant if they were veterans--would come from the conquest of a cottage. There a knot of half-clad English, fleeing reluctantly and firing over their shoulders as they fled, would arrive, beat at the doors before us, and be let in hastily under our fire, leaving always some of their number on the threshold. It was like no other fight I had ever fought, for the strange confusion of it; or perhaps my wound confused me yet a little. At length a louder yelling, a sharper firing, a wilder and mightier clamour, arose in the direction of the lane. Our own firing slackened. All eyes turned to watch a little band which, fighting furiously, was forcing its way hither through a swarm of assailants. "The vinegar-faces can fight!" I cried, "but we must stop them. Come on, lads!" And with a score at my back I rushed to meet the new-comers. Rushed, did I say? But I should have said struggled and floundered. For, the moment we were clear of the trampled area, and found ourselves in the open fields, the snow went nearly to our middles. Yet we met the gallant little band, which having shaken off its assailants, now fell upon us with a welcome of most earnest curses. Men speak of the bloody ferocity of a duel in a dark room. It is nothing to the blind, blundering, reckless, snarling rage of that struggle in the deep snow, and under that swimming delusive light. Having emptied my musket and my pistols, I threw them all away, and fell to playing nimbly with my sword. Big Etienne I saw close beside me, swinging his musket by the barrel. Suddenly its deadly sweep missed its object. The tall warrior fell headforemost, carried off his uneasy balance by the force of the blow. Ere he could flounder up again a foeman was upon him with uplifted sword. But with a mighty lunge, hurling myself forward from the drift that held my feet, I reached the man's neck with my own point, and fell at his feet.