Radisson gave the signal.
Instantaneously half a hundred lights were aflare. Red tongues of fire
darted from the loop-holes. Two lads were obeying our leader's call to
run--run--run, blowing fife, beating drum like an army's band, while
streams of boiling grease poured down from bastions and lookout.
Helmets, hats, and caps sticking round on the poles were lighted up
like the heads of a battalion; and oft as any of us showed himself he
displayed fresh cap. One Indian, I mind, got a stockade off and an arm
inside the wall. That arm was never withdrawn, for M. Radisson's
broadsword came down, and the Indian reeled back with a yelping scream.
Then the smoke cleared, and I saw what will stay with me as long as
memory lasts--M. Radisson, target for arrows or shot, long hair flying
and red doublet alight in the flare of the torches, was standing on top
of the pickets with his right arm waving a sword.
"Whom do you make them out to be, Ramsay?" he called. "Is not yon Le
Borgne?"
I looked to the Indians. Le Borgne it was, thin and straight, like a
mast-pole through mist, in conference with another man--a man with a
beard, a man who was no Indian.
"Sir!" I shouted back. "Those are the inland pirates. They are
leading the Indians against Ben Gillam, and not against us at all.
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