I had swallowed a dram and bathed my thumb in some of the same, my head ceased to go round; but as the fight went on, the pain made me as mad as a tiger.
By this time we were inside, and all struggling together on the stairs leading from the house to the cellar, and I felt that we could not keep this up long, as these devils were discharging their muskets, close into our very faces, so that they set Saulsoy's beard on fire, and Gueurlu had to squeeze it out between his hard hands. Luckily the rioters were too drunk to shoot straight, or we none of us would have come out of it alive. I could see also that we had an ally in the fire, which was creeping round the court from wing to wing, toward the main building where we were; so when we had retreated to the topmost step, some of us stood firm, while the rest hastily raised a barrier of loose stones and rubbish, reaching to the lintel of the doorway. Through the chinks we stuck our pikes and lances, like the quills of a porcupine. "Now," cried I, "those who like fire, will soon have plenty of it!"
The cellars were full of men, for the most part too drunk to realize their danger; but when the flames appeared through the cracks of the walls and began to eat away the beams of the roof, it was a perfect pandemonium of yells and curses, and like
