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"We're lost!" exclaimed Menzies. "There are too many of the fiends; we shall never drive them back!" "It's our last chance!" I shouted. "Steady, now. Fire!" Bang! went my musket. Bang! bang! bang! rang other reports. The volley caught the savages at a range of twenty yards and as the smoke drifted up from the loopholes I saw the foremost, at whom I had aimed, sprawled on the snow.
It was the voice of Baptiste, who was at one of the loopholes. He made room for me, and I peered eagerly out. The view was straight to the north, and what I saw turned my blood hot with anger.
From distance to distance, one could distinguish on the gray surface, almost invisible loopholes which resembled black threads. These loopholes were separated from each other by equal spaces. The street was deserted as far as the eye could reach. All windows and doors were closed.
Here is a mixture of tears and smiles, of stones and flowers, of mourning cypresses and radiant sky, which gives us the impression of our looking back at death from the brighter side of the grave. The cemetery nestles in an angle of the city wall, and the older graves are sheltered by a mass of ancient brickwork, through whose narrow loopholes you peep at the wide purple of the Campagna.
There was a short passage of ten feet, which had been formerly closed by a portcullis at the inner end, while three loopholes opened on either side, through which any daring intruder might be annoyed, who, having surprised the first gate, must be thus exposed to a severe fire before he could force the second.
There is above the middle part of this house a sort of first floor, with narrow openings like loopholes for windows, probably used in old times for the better defence against the savages, when the persistent barbarism of our native continent did not wear the black coats of politicians, but went about yelling, half-naked, with bows and arrows in its hands.
We passed along the battlements and chemins de ronde, ascended and descended towers, crawled under arches, peered out of loopholes, lowered ourselves into dungeons, halted in all sorts of tight places while the purpose of something or other was described to us.
Life is a running fight, and every foe slain entails on the slayer a new penalty of retribution for himself and his descendants for ever. Previous to the revolution most of the Mainote families lived in a state of alternate attack and siege. Their houses are square towers, forty or fifty feet high, with massive walls, and windows so narrow that they may be used as loopholes for musketry.
Edswick homesteaded the field about the time the wild tide of mining life was roaring and rioting up Kearsarge, and where the village now stands built a stone hut, with loopholes to make good his claim against cattle-men or Indians. But Edswick died and Roeder became master of the field.
He had hardly spoken when there was a flash and a report off to the left, followed quickly by one from the right. Both shots were aimed at the stockade loopholes, but they seemed to strike harmlessly, and drew no reply from our men. "Consarn the devils!" growled the voyageur as he peered into the night. "They don't show as much as a feather tip."
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