n a yard of me, the smoke concealing me from him. I struck him
with a backhanded blow on the elbow as he bent it, and I heard the bone
of his arm break as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With a roar of
pain, he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there and singed him.
The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gained sight of me,
till I caught his fire-brand from his hand, and struck it into his
countenance. With that he leaped at me, but I caught him in a manner
learned from early wrestling, and snapped his collar bone, as I laid
him upon the top of his comrade.

This little success so encouraged me that I was half inclined to advance
and challenge Carver Doone to meet me; but I bore in mind that he would
be apt to shoot me without ceremony; and what is the utmost of human
strength against the power of powder? Moreover, I remembered my promise
to sweet Lorna; and who would be left to defend her, if the rogues got
rid of me?

While I was hesitating thus, a blaze of fire lit up the house, and brown
smoke hung around it. Six of our men had let go at the Doones, by Jeremy
Stickles's order, as the villains came swaggering down in the moonlight
ready for rape or murder. Two of them fell, and the rest hung back, to
think at their leisure what this was. They were not used to this sort of
thing; it was neither just nor courteous.

Being unable any longer to contain myself, as I thought of Lorna's
excitement at all this noise of firing, I ran across the yard, expecting
whether they would shoot at me. However, no one shot at me; and I went
up to Carver Doone, whom I knew by his size in the moonlight, and I took
him by the beard and said, "Do you call yourself a man?"

For a moment he was so astonished that he could not answer. None had
ever dared, I suppose, to look at him in that way. And then he tried a
pistol at me; but I was too quick for him.

"Now, Carver, take warning," I said to him, very soberly; "you have
shown yourself a fool by your contempt of me. I may not be your match
in craft, but I am in manhood. You are a despicable villain. Lie low in
your native muck."

And with that word I laid him flat upon his back in our straw-yard by
the trick of the inner heel, which he could not have resisted unless he
were a wrestler. Seeing him down, the others ran, though one of them
made a shot at me, and some of them got their horses before our men came
up, and some went away without them. And among these