t up the axe and ran
his finger over it stupidly. Phut--another bullet spat into the soft
earth behind his shoulder. Then he understood. A fellow came tumbling
through the gap, pitched exactly where Nat had been sprawling a moment
before, rose to his knees, and then with a quiet bubbling sound lay
down again.

"Ugh! he would be killed--he must get out of this!" But there was no
cover unless he found it across the ditch and close under the high
stone curtain. They would be dropping stones, beams, fire barrels; but
at least he would be out of the reach of the bullets. He forgot the
chance--the certainty--of an enfilading fire from the two bastions.
His one desire was to get across and pick some place of shelter.

But by this time the men were pouring in behind and fast filling the
ditch. A fire-ball came crashing over the rampart, rolled down the
grass slope and lay sputtering, and in the infernal glare he saw all
his comrades' faces--every detail of their dress down to the moulded
pattern on their buttons. "Fourth! Fourth!" some one shouted, and then
voice and vision were caught up and drowned together in a hell of
musketry. He must win across or be carried he knew not where by the
brute pressure of the crowd. A cry broke from him and he ran, waving
his axe, plunged down the slope and across. On the further slope an
officer caught him up and scrambled beside him. "Whirro, Spuds! After
him, boys!" sang out Teddy Butson. But Spuds did not hear.

He and the officer were at the top of the turf--at the foot of the
curtain. "Ladders! Ladders!" He caught hold of the first as it was
pushed up and helped--now the centre of a small crowd--to plant it
against the wall. Then he fell back, mopping his forehead, and feeling
his torn cheek. What the devil were they groaning at? Short? The
ladder too short? He stared up foolishly. The wall was thirty feet
high perhaps and the ladder ten feet short of that or more. "Heads!"
A heavy beam crashed down, snapping the foot of the ladder like a
cabbage stump. Away to the left a group of men were planting another.
Half a dozen dropped while he watched them. Why in the world were they
dropping like that? He stared beyond and saw the reason. The French
marksmen in the bastion were sweeping the face of the curtain with
their cross fire--those cursed bullets again! And the ladder did not
reach, after all. O it was foolishness--flinging away men like this
for no earthly good! Why not throw up the