In a moment of supreme indecision the sailors hit by the bullets almost
yielded to an impulse of retreat, which would certainly have been death
to them all; but Sylvestre continued to advance, clubbing his rifle, and
fighting a whole band, knocking them down right and left with smashing
blows from the butt-end. Thanks to him the situation was reversed;
that panic or madness that blindly deceives all in these leaderless
skirmishes had now passed over to the Chinese side, and it was they who
began to retreat.

It was soon all over; they were fairly taking to their heels. The six
sailors, reloading their repeating rifles, shot them down easily; upon
the grass lay dead bodies by red pools, and skulls were emptying their
brains into the river.

They fled, cowering like leopards. Sylvestre ran after them, although he
had two wounds--a lance-thrust in the thigh and a deep gash in his arm;
but feeling nothing save the intoxication of battle, that unreasoning
fever that comes of vigorous blood, gives lofty courage to simple souls,
and made the heroes of antiquity.

One whom he was pursuing turned round, and with a spasm of desperate
terror took a deliberate aim at him. Sylvestre stopped short, smiling
scornfully, sublime, to let him fire, and seeing the direction of the
aim, only shifted a little to the left. But with the pressure upon the
trigger the barrel of the Chinese jingal deviated slightly in the same
direction. He suddenly felt a smart rap upon his breast, and in a flash
of thought understood what it was, even before feeling any pain; he
turned towards the others following, and tried to cry out to them the
traditional phrase of the old soldier, "I think it's all up with me!" In
the great breath that he inhaled after having run, to refill his lungs
with air, he felt the air rush in also by a hole in his right breast,
with a horrible gurgling, like the blast in a broken bellows. In that
same time his mouth filled with blood, and a sharp pain shot through
his side, which rapidly grew worse, until it became atrocious and
unspeakable. He whirled round two or three times, his brain swimming
too; and gasping for breath through the rising red tide that choked him,
fell heavily in the mud.

CHAPTER II--"OUT, BRIEF CANDLE!"

About a fortnight later, as the sky was darkening at the approach of the
rains, and the heat more heavily weighed over yellow Tonquin,
Sylvestre brought to Hanoi, was sent to Ha-Long, and placed o