icial bank, which was about four feet high, pouring a volley into
the defenders as they did so. And now single combats again commenced,
and the interior of the earthwork resembled an ancient arena.

The theoretical duty of an officer in action was suspended, for he had
to fight physically and practically like the men, the only difference
lying in the arms he wielded.

His sword was no longer a baton of office, but a weapon to cut and
thrust with, and the better its temper and the keener its edge, the
greater friend was it to him that day. Not always did it prove true.

Captain Wilson, RN, cut down an Arab who was about to kill a soldier,
and his blade shivered to the hilt, leaving him without a weapon to ward
off a cut which wounded him, though happily not severely, in the head.

Captain Littledale, of the York and Lancaster Regiment, also bent his
sword over one of the Soudanese in the fort, and would have lost his
life had not two of his company come to his rescue. Some of the men's
weapons proved equally rotten.

"Look here, sergeant," said a fine broad-shouldered young fellow, whose
face was like a sweep's with powder and dust, and whose clothes were
bespattered with what Tennyson delicately calls "drops of onset," as he
showed his bayonet twisted like a corkscrew, with the point bent over
into a hook.

"Why, what have you been using it for, Sullivan?" asked the sergeant,
taking it into his hand.

"Only prodding Johnnies, and not above three of them. It wouldn't go
into the last, and I had to polish him off with the butt end. Might
have smashed the stock, for their heads is uncommon hard."

"It's a deal too bad," said the sergeant. "I'll show it to the captain,
and he will report it. Take Brown's rifle and bayonet, he will never
want it again, poor fellow."

And indeed poor Brown was lying at the foot of the parapet with a spear
completely through his body, his first and last battle ended. The
spears and swords of the savages did not break or bend, or lose their
edge over the first bone they touched, like the weapons of their
civilised opponents.

Fitzgerald came up, and the sergeant showed him the twisted bayonet. He
was not easily put out, but the sight was too much even for his placid
temper.

"Keep it, sergeant, keep it. We will see if we cannot get it stuck up
in Saint James's Park with the trophies of captured guns, that the
British public may see the weapons soldiers are sent out to fig