That was one to them, but we scored one for us presently.  They had pushed forward a skirmish line, whose fire was towards the batteries on our right and left rather than on us; but we sent out two companies of the 95th to keep them in check.  It was strange to hear the crackling kind of noise that they made, for both sides were using the rifle.  An officer stood among the French skirmishers—­a tall, lean man with a mantle over his shoulders—­and as our fellows came forward he ran out midway between the two parties and stood as a fencer would, with his sword up and his head back.  I can see him now, with his lowered eyelids and the kind of sneer that he had upon his face.  On this the subaltern of the Rifles, who was a fine well-grown lad, ran forward and drove full tilt at him with one of the queer crooked swords that the rifle-men carry.  They came together like two rams—­for each ran for the other—­ and down they tumbled at the shock, but the Frenchman was below.  Our man broke his sword short off, and took the other’s blade through his left arm; but he was the stronger man, and he managed to let the life out of his enemy with the jagged stump of his blade.  I thought that the French skirmishers would have shot him down, but not a trigger was drawn, and he got back to his company with one sword through his arm and half of another in his hand.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE END OF THE STORM.

Of all the things that seem strange in that battle, now that I look back upon it, there is nothing that was queerer than the way in which it acted on my comrades; for some took it as though it had been their daily meat without question or change, and others pattered out prayers from the first gunfire to the last, and others again cursed and swore in a way that was creepy to listen to.  There was one, my own left-hand man, Mike Threadingham, who kept telling about his maiden aunt, Sarah, and how she had left the money which had been promised to him to a home for the children of drowned sailors.  Again and again he told me this story, and yet when the battle was over he took his oath that he had never opened his lips all day.  As to me, I cannot say whether I spoke or not, but I know that my mind and my memory were clearer than I can ever remember them, and I was thinking all the time about the old folk at home, and about Cousin Edie with her saucy, dancing eyes, and de Lissac with his cat’s whiskers, and all the doings at West Inch, which had ended by bringing us here on the plains of Belgium as a cockshot for two hundred and fifty cannons.