"All's fair in war," said the mocking voice of Ravailly, who, with his arm in a sling was urging his men on to take Canolles. "Surrender, Canolles, surrender, and you shall have good terms." "Ah! is it you, Ravailly?" was the reply. "I thought I had paid you my debt of friendship; but you are not content. Wait a moment--" As he spoke, Canolles darted forward five or six steps, and hurled the axe he held in his hand at Ravailly with such force that it cut through the helmet and gorget of a militia officer, who stood beside the captain of Navailles, and who fell dead. "Damnation!" exclaimed Ravailly; "how courteously you reply to proffered courtesies! I ought, though, to be well-used to your ways. He's mad, boys! fire on him! fire!" At the word a brisk volley came from the enemy's ranks, and five or six men about Canolles fell. "Fire!" cried he; "fire!" But only four or five muskets responded. Taken by surprise, just when they were least expecting it, and confused by the darkness, Canolles' troops had lost their courage. He saw that there was no hope. "Go in," he said to Vibrac, "go in and take your men with you; we will barricade ourselves, and we won't surrender at all events until they have carried the fort by assault." "Fire!" shouted two new voices, those of Espagnet and La Rochefoucauld. "Remember your dead comrades, who are crying out for vengeance. Fire!" The storm of lead came whistling again about Canolles without touching him, but decimating his little troop once more. "Back!" cried Vibrac, "back!" "At them! at them!" cried Ravailly; "forward, my lads, forward!" His men obeyed and rushed forward; Canolles, with hardly more than a half a score of men, sustained the shock; he had picked up a dead soldier's gun, and used it as a club. The soldiers entered the governor's house, Vibrac and he bringing up the rear. With their united efforts they succeeded in closing the door, despite the efforts of the assailants to prevent them, and secured it with an enormous bar of iron. There were bars at the windows. "Axes, crow-bars, cannon if necessary!" cried the voice of Duc de La Rochefoucauld; "we must take them all, dead or alive." His words were followed by an appalling discharge; two or three bullets pierced the door, and one of them shattered Vibrac's thigh. "'Faith, commandant," said he, "my account is settled; do you look now to settling yours; I am done with it all." He lay down by the wall, unable to stand erect. Canolles glanced about him; a dozen men were still in fighting trim, among them the sergeant he had stationed in the underground passage. "The torch!" said Canolles; "what did you do with the torch?" "I threw it down beside the barrel, commandant." "Is it still burning?" "Probably." "Good. Send out all your men through the rear doors and windows. Obtain for them and for yourself the best terms you can; the rest is my affair." "But, commandant--" "Obey!"