g faster and faster, as each
minute the firing grew nearer and nearer. He was in ignorance of the
exact nature of the attack until, as on the last occasion, the Russian
soldiers came back by twos and threes and re-entered the casemate.

"What is going on in the front?" McKay asked.

"The enemy are advancing up the ravine. We have been driven out of the
cemetery, and I doubt whether we shall hold our ground."

"They are coming on in thousands!" cried a new arrival. "This place is
not safe. Let us fall back to the Karabel barrack."

"You had better come too," said one soldier thoughtfully to McKay, as
he gathered up the long skirts of his grey great-coat to allow of more
expeditious retreat.

"All right," said McKay, "I will follow."

And taking advantage of the confusion, during which the sentries on
the casemate had withdrawn, he left his prison-chamber and got out
into the main road.

The fusilade was now close at hand; bullets whistled continually
around and pinged with a dull thud as they flattened against the rocky
ground.

The assailants were making good progress. McKay, as he crouched below
a wall on the side of the road, could hear the glad shouts of his
comrades as, with short determined rushes, they charged forward from
point to point.

His situation was one of imminent peril truly, for he was between two
fires. But what did he care? Only a few minutes more, if he could but
lie close, and he would be once more surrounded by his own men.

While he waited the dawn broke, and he could watch for himself the
progress the assailants made. They were now climbing along the slopes
of the ravine on both sides of the harbour, occupying house after
house, and maintaining a hot fire on the retreating foe. It was
exciting, maddening; in his eagerness McKay was tempted to emerge from
his shelter and wave encouragement to his comrades.

Unhappily for him, the gesture was misunderstood. The crack of
half-a-dozen rifles responded promptly, and a couple of them took
fatal effect. Poor Stanislas fell, badly wounded, with one bullet in
his arm and another in his leg.

CHAPTER XI.

AMONG FRIENDS AGAIN.

McKay lay where he fell, and it was perhaps well for him that he was
prostrate. The attacking parties soon desisted from firing, and
charged forward at racing-pace, driving all who stood before them at
the point of the bayonet. They swept over and past McKay, trampling
him under foot in their hot haste to d