boy a lift,' said an insurgent, suddenly
appearing from a hiding-place amongst the logs.

Ryder vaulted to the back of the horse, and, with the assistance of Levi
Long, for it was the American who had intervened, soon had Jim in the
saddle. A few blows from Long's pike started the nag, and Ryder rushed
him blindly at the slabs of the stockade, and the powerful animal
blundered through. A shot from an infantryman, intended for the riders,
struck the charger, and he plunged forward, snorting with pain, and
bolted madly across the broken ground of Eureka, and Ryder, clinging to
the unconscious man with one arm, made no attempt to check or regulate
their dangerous flight.

XIX

IT was now almost day; the fighting was over. A smart shower had fallen
during the struggle, and the wet pipeclay within the stockade was strewn
with dead and wounded diggers, and along the line of attack taken by the
three companies of infantry wounded and dead soldiers lay scattered,
their red coats dotting the white ground with curious blotches of colour,
the figures of the men still vague and indefinite in the mist and the
feeble light of the dawning day. A wounded soldier near the logs writhed
in his agony, with worm-like movements terrible to see. Confusion
remained within the stockade. The killing was ended, but the prisoners
were to be collected and guarded. Many of the insurgents had escaped,
some by hiding in the claims, others by making a run for the surrounding
diggings. A few brave friends who had hidden Peter Lalor under slabs
sloped against a log succeeded in carrying the wounded leader away under
the noses of the soldiers, and he escaped.

The fight had not lasted half an hour, and by the time the people of
Ballarat fully realized what was happening it was too late to give help
to the devoted few within the stockade; and the men gathered as near the
miniature battlefield as they were permitted to go, with white faces,
awed and penitent, many feeling the keenest pangs of remorse, knowing how
bitterly the earnest souls had paid for their neglect.

One woman had made her way into the stockade within a few minutes of the
firing of the last shot. She passed unnoticed in the confusion; her face
was hidden in a shawl, and she went quickly amongst the fallen rebels.
Some of the wounded men lay in puddles--these she helped; but it was
evident that she was seeking someone she knew as she passed from one to
another, peering into their face