"Parbleu!" he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "'Twas as well done as by troops of the line. I look for a warm time presently, when we cross arms with those fellows."
Even as he spoke, I observed the old chief passing rapidly from man to man, speaking briefly to each in turn and pointing toward us, as though giving special directions for the coming assault.
"Chevalier," I whispered, "would it not be well to try a shot at that tall-haired fellow?"
"It appears too great a distance to my eye."
"I have dropped a buck through forest limbs fifty feet farther."
"Then try your fortune," he said eagerly. "It may be those fellows have never heard the crack of a gun. The sound and sudden death might terrorize them."
I took careful aim above the wall, resting my long rifle-barrel in a groove between the stones, and fired. Ever since, it has seemed to me that God, for some mysterious purpose of His own, deflected the speeding ball, for never before or since did I miss such aim. Yet miss I did, for while the old chief leaped wildly backward, his cheek fanned by the bullet, it was the savage he conversed with who sprang high into air, coming down dead. Nor did a single warrior make a movement to flee. Instead of frightening, it enraged, driving them into savage fury as they stared at the stiffening body of their comrade. Scarcely had the smoke of the discharge drifted upward when, all their former impressive silence broken, and yelling like fiends incarnate, they made an impetuous rush for the hill.
"Français! Français!"
I was certain they used the word, fairly hissing it forth as if in bitter hatred, yet I had short enough time in which to listen as I hastily rammed home a second charge with which to greet them as they came.
"It will be best to draw, Messieurs," spoke De Noyan in a cool, drawling voice. "Ah, that was better, Master Benteen!" as two of the advancing mob went stumbling to the bullet. "It leaves but twenty-seven to the three of us; not such bad odds! Now, friends, yield no step backward, and strike as you never struck before."
I enjoyed little space in which to glance behind where I knew Eloise crouched beneath the protecting shadow of the great stone, yet I am certain I felt the full magic of her eyes upon me. As I wheeled, newly armed for strife, my hands clutched hard about the rifle-barrel, our fierce assailants came surging up against the stone wall. It was no time to note what others did; one realizes little at such a supreme moment except the flashing in his eyes where menacing weapons play across his front; the swift blows continually threatening to crush his guard; the fierce, cruel faces glaring at him eye to eye, and his own desperate efforts to drive and kill. It all abides in fevered memory not unlike those pictures of horror coming of a dark night when lightning leaps from the black void. I mind the first man to reach me, a burly ruffian, whose shining spear-point missed my throat by so narrow a margin it tasted blood ere my rifle-stock crushed the side of his head and sent him backward, a reeling corpse into the mass at his heels. Then all was confusion, a riot of leaping figures, frantic shouting, and clanging weapons, and I know not what was done, except that I struck out like a crazed man, heedless of what might be aimed at me, but letting drive at every savage head within range, until, at last, there seemed no others in my front. Then, as I paused, breathless and uncertain, passing my hand across my eyes to clear them from the blood and hair which half blinded me, I heard De Noyan's drawling tone.