It was to play my life upon one card: should I not mortally wound him, no defence would be left me; what was yet more appalling, I thus ran the risk of bringing my own face against his scissor with the double force of our assaults, and my face and eyes are not that part of me that I would the most readily expose.
'_Allez_!' said the sergeant-major.
Both lunged in the same moment with an equal fury, and but for my manoeuvre both had certainly been spitted.

As it was, he did no more than strike my shoulder, while my scissor plunged below the girdle into a mortal part; and that great bulk of a man, falling from his whole height, knocked me immediately senseless.
When I came to myself I was laid in my own sleeping-place, and could make out in the darkness the outline of perhaps a dozen heads crowded around me.

I sat up.

'What is it ?' I exclaimed.
'Hush!' said the sergeant-major.

'Blessed be God, all is well.' I felt him clasp my hand, and there were tears in his voice.