the hubbub of voices loud and clear,

"Don't stir, Connell; stay where you are. I can finish with these hounds
alone."

As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted
sword.

I don't wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were
fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with
rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes.

Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from
my wife, who had been quiet till now. At first I thought that some
fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a
great joy. My poor Kate! She had roughed it in barracks too long not to
know the rattle of the steel scabbards.

When the dragoons came up at a hard gallop, there was nothing left in
the court-yard but the dead and dying. Mohun had followed the flyers to
get a last stroke at the hindmost. We clambered down into the hall, and,
just as we reached the door, we saw a miserable crippled being clinging
round his knees, crying for quarter. Poor wretch! he might as well have
asked it from a famished jungle-tiger. The arm that had fallen so often
that night, and never in vain, came down once more; the piteous appeal
ended in a death-yell, and, as we reached him, Mohun was wiping coolly
his dripping sabre: it had no more work to do.

I could not help shuddering as I took his offered hand, and I saw
Connell tremble for the first time as he made the sign of the cross.

The Dragoons were returning from the pursuit; they had only made two
prisoners; the darkness and broken ground prevented their doing more.
Ralph went up to the officer in command.

"How very good of you to come yourself, Harding, when I only asked you
for a troop. Come in; you shall have some supper in half an hour, and
Fritz will take care of your men. Throw all that carrion out," he went
on, as we entered the hall, strewn with corpses. "We'll give them a
truce to take up their dead."

Clontarf came to meet us; he had only been stunned and bruised by the
fall. His pale face flushed up as he said, "I shall never forget that I
have to thank you for my life."

"It's not worth mentioning," Mohun replied, carelessly. "I hope you are
not much the worse for the tumble. Gad! it was a near thing, though. The
quarryman's arms were a rough necklace."

At that moment they were carrying by the disfigured remains of the dead
Colossus. His slayer stopped them