int.

The day had passed noon before these new dispositions were planned.
Posting ten men and a corporal to guard the charred remains of the camp,
and two small bodies to patrol the road east and west of the house and to
keep a portion of the defence busy in the courtlage, the lieutenant led
the remainder of his force through an orchard divided from the south end
of the house by a narrow lane, over which a barn abutted. Its high blank
wall had been loopholed on both floors and was quite unassailable, but its
roof was of thatch. And as he studied it, keeping his men in cover,
a happy inspiration occurred to him. He sent back to the camp for an
oil-can and a parcel of cotton wadding, and by three o'clock had opened a
brisk fire of flaming bullets on the thatch. Within twenty minutes the
marksmen had it well ignited. Behind and close above it rose a gable of
the house itself, with a solitary window overlooking the ridge, and their
hope was that the wind would carry the fire from one building to another.

Thatch well sodden with winter's rain does not blaze or crackle.
Dense clouds of smoke went up, and soon small lines of flame were running
along the slope of the roof, dying down, and bursting forth anew.
By the light of them, through the smoke, the soldiers saw a man at the
window above, firing, reloading, and firing again. They sent many a shot
at the window; but good aim from their cover was impossible, and the
loopholes of the barn itself spat bullets viciously and kept the assault
from showing its head.

The man at the window--it was Roger Stephen--exposed himself recklessly
even when the fire from the loopholes ceased, as to the lieutenant's
surprise it did quite suddenly.

For a minute or so the thatch burned on in silence. Then from within the
building came the sound of an axe crashing, stroke on stroke, upon the
posts and timbers of the roof. Some madman was bringing down the
barn-roof upon him to save the house. The man at the window went on
loading and firing.

The soldiers themselves held their breath, and almost let it go in a cheer
when, with a rumble and a thunderous roar, the roof sank and collapsed,
sending up one furious rush of flame in a column of dust. But as the dust
poured down the flame sank with it. The house was saved. They looked
about them and saw the light fading out of the sky, and the lieutenant
gave the order to return to camp. The man at the window sent a parting
shot aft