e steel rods of his engine with
clinking knocks from his hammer.

Up and down in front of the dark station walked a Japanese sentinel and
each time that he passed beyond the ring of light thrown by the two
dimly burning lamps he seemed to be swallowed up in the darkness. Only
two little windows at one end of the station were lighted up; they
belonged to the Japanese guard-room and had been walled up so that they
were no wider than loop-holes. The train which inspected this district
regularly between eight and nine o'clock each evening had passed by at
8.30 and proceeded in the direction of Portland. With the exception of
the non-commissioned officer and the man in charge of the three
arc-lamps on the roof that were to light up the surrounding country in
case of a night-attack most of the soldiers had gone to sleep, although
a few were engaged in a whispered conversation.

Suddenly the sergeant sprang up as a muffled cry was heard from the
outside. "The lamps!" he yelled to the man at the electric instrument.
The latter pushed the lever, but everything remained pitch dark outside.

The soldiers were up in a second. The sergeant took a few steps towards
the door, but before he could reach it, it was torn open from the
outside.

A determined looking man with a rifle slung over his shoulder appeared
in the doorway, and the next moment a dark object flew through the air
and was dashed against the wall. A deafening report followed, and then
the guard-room was filled with yellow light caused by the blinding
explosion, while thick black smoke forced its way out through the
loop-holes. Armed men were running up and down in front of the station,
and when the man who had thrown the bomb and who was only slightly
injured but bleeding at the nose and ears from the force of the
concussion, was picked up by them, they were able to assure him
triumphantly that his work had been successful and that the guard-room
had become a coffin for the small Japanese detachment.

Stumbling over the dead body of the sentinel lying on the platform, the
leader of the attacking party rushed towards the engine, out of the
discharge-valves of which clouds of boiling steam poured forth. With one
bound he was up in the cab, where he found the Japanese fireman killed
by a blow from an ax. Other dark figures climbed up from the opposite
side bumping into their comrades.

"Halloo, Dick, I call that a good job!" And then it began to liven up
along the r