hen, is that gate unbarred?"

"Yes, sir."

"Is the covering-party ready?"

"Yes, sir."

My hand trembled as he spoke; but the next instant it was of a piece
with my gun-stock. There was the dry square, with the sun shining on
the two guns that must have been hot behind the poor prisoners' backs;
there stood the two gunners in white, with their smoking linstocks,
leaning against the wheels, for discipline was slack; and there, thirty
or forty yards behind, were the mutineers, lounging about, and smoking
many of them. For all firing had ceased, and judging that we should not
risk having the prisoners blown away from the guns, the mutineers came
boldly up within range, as if defying us, and it was pretty safe
practice at some of them now.

I saw all this at a glance, and while it seemed as if the order would
never come; but come it did, at last.

"Fire!"

Bang! the two pieces going off like one; and the gunner behind Captain
Dyer leaped into the air, while the one I aimed at seemed to sink down
suddenly beside the wheel he had leaned upon. Then the gate flew open,
and with a rush and a cheer, we, ten of us, raced down for the guns.

Double-quick time! I tell you it was a hard race; and being without my
gun now--only my bayonet stack in my trousers' waist-band--I was there
first, and had driven my spike into the touch-hole before Lieutenant
Leigh reached his; but the next moment his was done, the cords were cut,
and the prisoners loose from the guns. But now we had to get back.

The first inkling I had of the difficulty of this was seeing Captain
Dyer and Harry Lant stagger, and fall forward; but they were saved by
the men, and we saw directly that they must be carried.

No sooner thought of than done.

"Hoist Harry on my back," says Grainger; and he took him like a sack;
Bantem acting the same part by Captain Dyer; and those two ran off,
while we tried to cover them.

For don't you imagine that the mutineers were idle all this while; not a
bit of it. They were completely taken by surprise, though, at first,
and gave us time nearly to get to the guns before they could understand
what we meant; but the next moment some shouted and ran at us, and some
began firing; while by the time the prisoners were cast loose, they were
down upon us in a hand-to-hand fight.

But in those fierce struggles there is such excitement, that I've now
but a very misty recollection of what took place; but I do recollect
seein