Meantime, Speckbacher, with six hundred men, having carried the bridge, had thrice dislodged the Bavarians from the farm of Rainerhof, twice been driven out, and the third time triumphantly taken it: earning for himself from the other side the questionable title of the Fire-devil. The owners of the farm were in it all the time. A girl named Lisa, seeing Speckbacher's lips dry and parched, exclaimed, "That brave man shall not die of thirst if I can help it"--and carrying out a small cask of wine into the midst, she began to dispense its contents in a mug, first to him and then to his comrades, when a bullet struck the cask and made a small orifice near the spiggot. Thrusting her thumb into the hole, she cried, laughing, "Come, men, drink fast, or it will run out quicker than I can stop it!" Father Joachim, flying about the field, shouting to his men and brandishing aloft his huge ebony crucifix, performed, it is said, prodigies of valour and generalship. He was humane, too, binding up wounds, whispering brief absolution into the ears of the dying; and once, at least, narrowly escaped death himself, for a Bavarian was about to run him through the body with his bayonet, when he himself was brought down by a rifle. Hofer did not come up till some hours later, but then turned the fortune of the day. Somewhat after him arrived Martin Teimer, on the heights of Hotting; on seeing whom, the Bavarians advanced with great resolution on the Iselberg. The Austrians, under Colonel Ertel, who were somewhat dispersed, drew up in haste to receive them, supported by a large body of Tyrolese, and the Bavarians maintained the contest for some time with great gallantry; but the Tyrolese sharpshooters among the rocks thinned their ranks so formidably that their destruction would have been inevitable, had not the peasants fallen short of ammunition. An officer with a trumpet was therefore despatched to the Bavarian commander, advising him to lay down his arms; and, as he had just heard that one of his outposts had been carried by the Austrians, he conceded a suspension of hostilities for twenty-four hours, and, under cover of the night, effected a precipitate retreat, leaving the Tyrolese complete masters of the field. "Aha," said Speckbacher, shaking his fist at some ammunition-wagons which now, rather too tardily, loomed large in the distance,--"had you come up a little sooner.... But, no matter--Innsbruck is a second time ours!" [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XIII. THE LATTER END OF A FRAY, AND THE BEGINNING OF A FEAST. The loss of the Tyrolese amounted to sixty-two killed and ninety-seven wounded; of their friends the Austrians, twenty-five killed and fifty-nine wounded. Of the Bavarians were reckoned two thousand five hundred killed and wounded, including several officers.