lso was shot away, I kept up a fire
with it, determining to hold out to the last. My poor fellows were
falling thick around me. Numbers had been wounded; scarcely one had
escaped; eight had been killed. Tom Rockets had received a bad injury
on one arm; still he worked away with the other, helping as best he
could to load and fire the gun. The midshipman, Nol Grampus, and I were
the only men in the battery uninjured. Old Nol stood as upright and
undaunted as ever. The gun had just been loaded; he held the match in
his hand; he was about to fire. At that instant I saw a shell pitching
into the battery. Our gun went off. Its roar seemed louder than
before. At the same instant there was the noise of the bursting of the
shell. I was covered with dust and smoke. It cleared away, but when I
looked out for Grampus, expecting to see him at the gun, he was gone. A
little way off lay a mangled form. I ran up. It was that of my old
faithful follower and friend. He knew me, but he was breathing out his
last.

"I knowed it would be so, Mr Hurry," he whispered, as I stooped down
over him. "When I saw the old barkie go I knowed that the days of many
on us was numbered. I'd have like to have seen the war ended, and you,
Mr Hurry, made happy. Bless you, my boy, bless you! You've always
showed your love for the old seaman. Well, it's all right. I don't
fear to die. He who rules up aloft knows what's best. He will have
mercy on a poor ignorant sailor who trusts on One who came on earth to
save him. That's my religion. You stick to that, boy! I can't see.
I'm cold, very cold."

I took my old friend's hand. He pressed it faintly. "Thank ye, thank
ye," I thought he said. His lips moved for a few moments, then suddenly
he fell back. A shudder passed through his frame, and he was gone. A
better or a braver seaman than Nol Grampus never died fighting for his
sovereign's cause.

I had to spring up and help work the gun, for another of my poor fellows
was just knocked over. I looked at my watch. It was the time my relief
should arrive, and time it was, for the midshipman and I were the only
two now remaining unhurt. Out of the thirty-six men who followed me
into the battery nine lay dead, eight more were breathing out their last
on the ground, and of the nineteen others most had lost either an arm or
a leg.

At last my brother-officer with some men appeared. He stood aghast, as
well he might, at the spectac