“You—­you here, Miss!  Oh, I remember now; it had been knocked plum out o’ me.  Did he get away?”

“Who?”

“That feller who knifed Burke.  I had him all right, sir, back in the coal cellar.  He’d crawled away there into one corner, an’ it was dark as hell—­beg your pardon, Miss.”  The sergeant sank back against Jones’ shoulder, and the man wet his lips with water.  “I couldn’t see only the mere outline of him, and didn’t dare crawl in, for I knew he had a knife.  All I could do was cover him with a gun, an’ try to make him come out.  That’s what I was up to when you called.  Damned if I knew what to do then—­there was some racket up stairs, let me tell you, an’ I knew there was a devil of a fight goin’ on.  I wanted to be in it the worst way, but I couldn’t find it in my heart to let that devil loose again.  Finally I got desperate, an’ grabbed him by the leg, an’ hauled him out, spittin’ and fightin’ like a cat.  He cut me once, before I got a grip on his wrist, an’ my gun shoved against him.  Then he went weak as a rag.  But I wan’t thinkin’ much except about the fracas up stairs—­the boys catchin’ hell, an’ me not with ’em.  So I didn’t fool long with that feller.  I just naturally yanked him ’long with me up stairs into the kitchen, an’ flung him down against the wall.  I got one glance out into the hall, an’ didn’t care no more what become o’ him.  You was facin’ the whole mob of ’em, swingin’ a gun barrel, an’ I knew where I belonged.  But damned if that feller didn’t startle me.  He was up like a flash to his feet, an’ I thought he was trying to get me.  But he wasn’t.  When I run to you, he wasn’t two steps behind, an’ may I be jiggered, sir, if he didn’t jump in there on your right, an’ fight like a wild man.  That’s all I saw, just the first glimpse.  He sure went into it all right, but I don’t know how he come out.”

“Well, I do; I happened to see that myself, though I hardly know how.  He was clubbed with a musket from the stairs.  The man who hit him fell when the railing broke.  The two of them must be lying over there now.  Who was he, Miles?  Did you know him?”

The sergeant wiped the perspiration from his face with his sleeve, and Jones moistened his lips again.  I felt Billie’s grasp tighten, and her hair brush my cheek.

“Well, I thought I did, sir,” he admitted at last, but as though not wholly convinced, “only I don’t like to say till you have a look at the lad.  He was dead game anyhow, I’ll say that for him, an’ I don’t feel just sure.  I never got eyes on him in daylight, an’ when I yanked him out o’ the coal hole he was mostly black.  Maybe that’s him over there, sir.”

The hospital squad had cleared out much of the front hall, but had not reached the plaster pile where we had made our last stand.  Those that were left were mostly clad in gray, but over against the stairs, one leg and arm showing, was a blue uniform.  The hospital men came back, and I called to them,