on their feet then I shall never know, but I was in the narrow passage beside the stairs alone.  Out of the clangor and confusion, the yells and oaths, there came a memory of Billie.  My God!  I had forgotten! and she was there, crouching in the blackness, not five feet away.  The thought gave me the reckless strength of insanity.  My feet were upon a rubbish heap of plaster, where a shell had shaken the ceiling to the floor.  It gave me vantage, a height from which to strike.  Never again will I fight as I did then.  Twice they came, and I beat them back, the iron club sweeping a death circle.  Somewhere out from the murk two men joined me, one with barking revolver, the other with gleam of steel; together we blocked the passage.  Some one on the stairs above reached over, striking with his gun, and the man at my right went down.  I caught a glimpse of the other’s face—­it was Miles.  Then, behind us, about us, rose a cheer; something sent me reeling over against the wall, striking it with my head, and I lost consciousness.

I doubt if to exceed a minute elapsed before I was able to lift my head sufficiently to see about me.  Across my body sprang a Federal officer, and behind him pressed a surging mass of blue-clad men.  They trod on me as though I were dead, sweeping their way forward with plunging steel.  Others poured out of the parlor, and fought their way in through the shattered front door.  It was over so quickly as to seem a dream—­just a blue cloud, a cheer, a dozen shots, those heavy feet crunching me, the flicker of weapons, a shouted order, and then the hall was swept bare of the living, and we lay there motionless under the clouds of smoke.  The swift reaction left me weak as a child, yet conscious, able to realize all within range of my vision.  My fingers still gripped the carbine barrel, and dripping blood half blinded me.  Between where I lay and the foot of the stairs were bodies heaped together, dead and motionless most of them, but with here and there a wounded man struggling to extricate himself.  They were clad in gray and blue, but with clothing so torn, so blackened by powder, or reddened by blood, as to be almost indistinguishable.  The walls were jabbed and cut, the stair-rail broken, the chandelier crushed into fragments.  Somehow my heart seemed to rise up into my throat and choke me—­we had accomplished it!  We had held the house!  Whether for death or life, we had performed our duty.

I could hear the echoing noises without; above the moans and cries, nearer at hand, and even drowning the deep roar of the guns, sounded the sturdy Northern cheers.  They were driving them, and after the fight, those same lads would come back, tender as women, and care for us.  It was not so bad within, now the smoke was drifting away, and nothing really hurt me except my shoulder.  It was the body lying half across me that held me prone, and I struggled vainly to roll it to one side.  But I had no strength, and the effort was vain.  The pain made me writhe