And now there came a sudden rush of feet; a medley of deep-throated callings came almost from the gallery edge. The assault, savage, useless, almost hopeless, had begun. Eddring remembered always that it seemed to him that this young gentleman, Henry Decherd, was a trifle pale; that Bowles was at least a dozen feet tall; that Colonel Calvin Blount was quite turned to stone; and that he himself was not there personally, but merely witnessing some fierce and fearful nightmare in which others were concerned. Once he heard Mrs. Ellison call repeatedly to Delphine, and was dimly conscious that there was no answer. Once, too, he saw, standing at the door, the tall figure of the young girl, Miss Lady--the white girl, the prototype of civilization; woman, sweet, to be shielded, to be cared for, to be protected--yea, though it were with a man's heart-blood. And after this spectacle John Eddring looked about him no more, but cherished his rifle and used it. About him were vague and confused sounds of a conflict of which he saw little save that directly in front of his own window. He was conscious of a second insignificant rifle-crack at his right, and heard other shots from Blount's window at the left. His own work he did methodically, feeling that his duty was plain to him. He was a rifleman. His firing was not aimless, but exact, careful, pitilessly unagitated. The black mass in front broke and scattered, and drew together again and came on. The assailants reached every portion of the front yard, hiding behind buildings, trees, anything they could find. At the rear of the house, among the barns, there arose the yelping of dogs cut down at the kennels, and screams rang out where the maddened blacks, no longer human, were stabbing horses and cattle and leaving them half dead. Then there arose a sudden flicker of flame. Some voice cried out that they had fired the cotton-gin. From other buildings closer at hand there also arose flames. From the kitchen came cries and lamentations. Here and there over the ground, plain in the moonlight, or huddled blackly in the shadows, there lay long blurs where the rifles had done their work. Yet from a point not far from the corner of the gallery there came continual firing. "That's from behind that board-pile out there," cried Blount, stepping back from his window. "We've got to get them out." Eddring, not pausing for speech, plunged out of the window, rushed across the gallery and over the narrow space to the shelter whence was coming this close firing. His weapon spoke once and was lowered. Then he fled back as swiftly as he had gone. "Get back in here, you fool!" cried Blount, pulling him in at the window as he returned. "How many were there?" "Two," said Eddring, breathless. "One was a woman." "Woman!" cried Blount; "what woman?"