some fifty paces in the rear
and to loop-hole that.

"The next time they come," he said, "they will be too strong for us and
we must fall back." The remainder of the men he placed near the two ends
of the wall, so that as they fell back their comrades behind could open
their fire and so cover their retreat. It was another quarter of an hour
before the Germans made a move. Then a great body of men sprang over the
wall. Forty rifles were discharged simultaneously, then Henri's whistle
rang out. The men leaped to their feet, and at the top of their speed
ran to the wall behind them, from which their comrades were pouring a
stream of fire into the Germans. Several fell as they ran, the rest on
gaining the wall threw themselves over, and as soon as they had reloaded
joined its defenders. The Germans, however, were still pressing on, when
they were taken in flank by a heavy fire from the back of the houses
held by the French, and they got no farther than the wall that had just
been vacated. Then the musketry duel recommenced under the same
conditions as before. The company had already lost thirty men, ten lay
by the wall they had defended, killed by bullets that had passed through
the loop-holes; eight more were stretched on the ground that they had
just traversed. The rest had made their way to the rear, wounded.
Cuthbert had had a finger of the left hand carried away as he was in the
act of firing. He had felt a stinging blow but had thought little of it
until he had taken his position behind the second wall.

"Tie my handkerchief over this, Rene," he said, "fortunately it is only
the left hand, and a finger more or less makes little odds. Where is
Dampierre? I don't see him."

"I am afraid he is lying under that wall there," Rend said; "at any rate
I don't see him here; he ought to be the third man from me. Minette will
go out of her mind if he is killed," but they had no further time for
talking, and as soon as his hand was bandaged, Cuthbert took his place
at a loophole.

"I think things are better," he said, after a few minutes, to Rend. "The
shells are not falling round us as they did. The heavy guns at St. Maur
must have silenced the German batteries, and I fancy, by the heavy
firing from the other end of the village, that we have been reinforced."

This was indeed the case. For some time the Prussians continued to make
obstinate efforts to advance, but gradually the number of defenders of
the village increased,