that he had made some
arrangements as to how the order was to be obeyed, for the second man
fired his carbine, and then scrambled over his prostrate comrade; after
which he stooped, and the third fired his carbine likewise, and then
hurried forward in the same manner.

At the first sound of the fire arms the rioters were taken completely by
surprise; they had not had the least notion of affairs getting to such a
length. The smell of the powder, the loud report, and the sensation of
positive danger that accompanied these phenomena, alarmed them most
terrifically; so that, in point of fact, with the exception of the empty
chest that was thrown down in the way of the first soldier, no further
idea of defence seemed in any way to find a place in the hearts of the
besieged.

They scrambled one over the other in their eagerness to get as far as
possible from immediate danger, which, of course, they conceived existed
in the most imminent degree the nearest to the door.

Such was the state of terror into which they were thrown, that each one
at the moment believed himself shot, and the soldiers had overcome all
the real difficulties in getting possession of what might thus be called
the citadel of the inn, before those men who had been so valorous a
short time since recovered from the tremendous fright into which they
had been thrown.

We need hardly say that the carbines were loaded, but with blank
cartridges, for there was neither a disposition nor a necessity for
taking the lives of these misguided people.

If was the suddenness and the steadiness of the attack that had done all
the mischief to their cause; and now, ere they recovered from the
surprise of having their position so completely taken by storm, they
were handed down stairs, one by one, from soldier to soldier, and into
the custody of the civil authorities.

In order to secure the safe keeping of large a body of prisoners, the
constables, who were in a great minority, placed handcuffs upon some of
the most capable of resistance; so what with those who were thus
secured, and those who were terrified into submission, there was not a
man of all the lot who had taken refuge in the attics of the
public-house but was a prisoner.

At the sound of fire-arms, the women who were outside the inn had, of
course, raised a most prodigious clamour.

They believed directly that every bullet must have done some most
serious mischief to the townspeople, and it was only u