actually expires through fright.

The doctor has seen some wonderful stage fights, but the equal of this,
never. He laughs, yet finds himself almost stupefied with amazement.
Truly, the Victoria cross would well become this remarkable hero.

One or two of the dead men do not seem to have had enough, or else are
dissatisfied with the manner of their taking off. At any rate, they
stagger to their feet, and have to be put to sleep again by energetic
means.

Philander comes near making a mess of it all by his enthusiasm. It is a
regular picnic to the small professor.

In the beginning he aimed his gun at one of the brigands. The weapon is
strange to him, being a long Arabian affair, with a peculiar stock, but
Philander has some knowledge of weapons, shuts his eyes, and pulls the
trigger.

The report staggers him. When he opens his eyes, and sees the big,
ragged Kabyle at whom he aimed lying flat on his back, with arms
extended, the professor is horrified at first.

Then some of the warlike spirit that distinguished his ancestors at
Lexington begins to flame up within him.

He gives a shrill war-cry that would doubtless please many a Greek
scholar, and plunges headlong for the foe.

The way in which he swings that Arab gun is a sight to behold; in itself
the apparition of Professor Sharpe thus advancing to the fray is enough
to strike terror to the human heart.

One poor devil is in a position to receive a tremendous whack on the
back with the gun, now used as a cudgel, and there is positively no
fraud about the manner of his sprawling around.

After that the professor sweeps the air in vain with his weapon. Men who
have met the terrors of the Algerian desert for years, fall down and
expire before he can hasten their exit from this vale of tears.

Really, it is wonderful--he never before knew the tenets of the
Mohammedan religion made its devotees so accommodating; they seem to
court dissolution in the longing for paradise, where the prophet
promises eternal happiness for all who die in battle.

It ends; even such obliging fellows as these do not need to be killed
more than a couple of times. Lady Ruth had covered her eyes with her
hands when the action began.

She is the daughter of a soldier race, and as brave as the majority of
her sex; still she shudders to gaze upon the taking of human life.

Perhaps, too, she anticipates the death of the valorous Briton, who has
hurled himself so impetuously into the