jabbering of the Paddy, with an inclination to
laugh aloud.

'Glory be, they're comin'! they're comin'! they're comin'! Plaze the
pigs, I'll have wan! Jist wan 'll satisfy me. Blessed saints, make it the
wan that shot O'Keif! Och, they're comin', th' darlin's! Hit home, Tim
Canty, an' Holy Mary make it the wan that shot Barty O'Keif!'

Jim's eyes were fixed upon the dark mass charging the stockade. The
soldiers were now not more than sixty yards off, and he could see a
horseman leading. He heard the order to charge, and heard Lalor's sharp,
stern reply. There followed a blast of rifles from the stockade, and the
shadowy equestrian figure leading the Imperial infantry became blurred
and broken in the dusk and the thin rain, and the riderless horse at the
head of the column cantered on, and leapt into the stockade through the
smoke.

'First blood!' muttered Mike, as the officer fell.

Finding the attack concentrated on one point of the stockade, Lalor
gathered his handful of rifles here, and they met the charge of the
regulars with another volley, checking their advance. A volley from the
carbines replied, and the lead whistled into the stockade. A pikeman ran
forward a few steps, plunged on his face at Jim's feet, and lay still.

'Holy Mother, if I can git wan iv them I'll be content--almost!'
continued the little Irishman in his fierce monologue.

'Down, men! Take cover under the logs!' said the captain of the pikes,
and Done obeyed with the rest; and crouching there, hearing the cracking
of the carbines, the terrible impatience of Canty began to work in his
own blood. He felt himself to be utterly useless; his pike was impotent
against the carbines of the enemy, and the lust of battle was in him. He
burned for the stress of action, longed for the order to dash upon the
enemy. It was difficult to repress the impatience that spurred him to
jump to his feet, and, calling his mates to follow to throw himself
against, the soldiers.

That wait under the logs seemed interminable, and meanwhile the riflemen
within the stockade and the carbineers without exchanged several volleys,
and in between there was an indecisive pattering of independent rifles,
and Jim saw the vague figures of his comrades falling in the gloom,
falling falteringly, without apparent motive. He could not connect the
discharge of the guns with the dropping of the wounded: it was all so
cold-blooded, so dispassionate.

'They're not comin'!' cried C