"Well done, Peter, well done!" I cried, wildly; and then, as though it were an answer to my boasts, something fell upon my shoulder like a great weight dropped from above, and I went down headlong upon the rock. Turning as I fell, I clutched a human throat, and, closing my fingers upon it, he and I, the man out of the darkness and the fool who had forgotten his eyes, went reeling over and over like wild beasts that seek a hold and would tear and bite when the moment comes. Aye, how I held him, how near his eyes seemed to mine, what gasping sounds he uttered, how his feet fought for foothold on the rock, how his hand felt for the knife at his girdle! And I had him always, had him surely; and seeking to force himself upward, the slippery rock gave him no foothold, and he slipped at last from my very fingers, and some great fish, hidden from me, drew him down to the water and I saw the waves close above his mouth. Henceforth there were but three men left at the gate of Czerny's house. They were three who, even at that time, could thank God because the peril was turned. * * * We beat the twelve off, as I have told you, and for an hour at least no fresh attack was made on the rock. The sharpest eye now could not detect boats in the darkness; the sharpest ear could not distinguish the muffled splash of oars. We lay all together in the turret, and very methodically, as seamen will, we stanched our wounds and asked, "What next?" That we had some hurt of such an affray goes without saying. My own shoulder was bruised and aching; the blood still trickled down Peter Bligh's honest face from the knife-wound that had gashed his forehead; Seth Barker pressed his hand to a jagged side and said that it was nothing. But for these scratches we cared little, and when our comrades hailed us from the lesser gate, their "All's well!" made us glad men indeed. In spite of it all, one of us, at least, I witness, could tell himself, "It is possible--by Heaven, it is possible--that we shall see the day!" That we had beaten off the first attack was not to be doubted. Wherever the mutineers had gone to, they no longer rowed in the loom of the gate. And yet I knew that the time must be short; day would not serve them nor the morning light. The dark must decide it. "They will come again, Peter, and it will be before the dawn," said I, when one thing and another had been mentioned and no word of their misfortune. "It's beyond expectation to suppose anything else. If this house is to be taken, they must take it in the dark. And more than that, lads," said I, "it was a foolish thing for us to go among them as we did and to fight it out down yonder. We are safer in the turret--safer, by a long way!"