‘Down, men!  Take cover under the logs!’ said the captain of the pikes, and Done obeyed with the rest; and crouching there, hearing the cracking of the carbines, the terrible impatience of Canty began to work in his own blood.  He felt himself to be utterly useless; his pike was impotent against the carbines of the enemy, and the lust of battle was in him.  He burned for the stress of action, longed for the order to dash upon the enemy.  It was difficult to repress the impatience that spurred him to jump to his feet, and, calling his mates to follow to throw himself against, the soldiers.

That wait under the logs seemed interminable, and meanwhile the riflemen within the stockade and the carbineers without exchanged several volleys, and in between there was an indecisive pattering of independent rifles, and Jim saw the vague figures of his comrades falling in the gloom, falling falteringly, without apparent motive.  He could not connect the discharge of the guns with the dropping of the wounded:  it was all so cold-blooded, so dispassionate.

‘They’re not comin’!’ cried Canty, whose frenzy would not permit of his keeping cover.  ‘Why don’t they come on like min?  God sind me wan—­jist—­’

He fell like a man whose legs had suddenly lost all power, and lay there, his face pressed to the moist earth, and Jim felt the dying man’s fingers moving upon his leg in a trifling way.  Presently a hand clutched his own, and he was drawn down.

‘Are you hit badly, old man?’ said Done.

‘Mortal!  I’m hit mortal bad!’ The hand clung desperately, and Jim peered into Canty’s face, and saw a smear of blood about his mouth.  He was shot through the breast.  ‘Mate,’ he said eagerly, ’kill wan fer me!  Kill wan—­if it’s only a little wan!’

‘I’ll do my best, old man.’

‘But one fer me, an’ fer the good man they murthered.  Say “Take that for Barty O’Keif!” when you hit him.’

‘So help me God, I will!’

Jim placed Canty well under the cover of the logs, with his head pillowed on a clod.

‘Give me me pike here in the right hand.  Good enough!’ He lay quite still now, and muttered no more, but Jim could see his bright eyes stirring in the semi-darkness.

The firing from without was maintained, but the swaddies were in no hurry to cover the patch of ground that lay between them and the stockade, although the insurgents had already almost exhausted their ammunition.  Lalor sprang to the top of the barrier, and stood for a moment, turning as if to give an order, but the order was never spoken.  A ball struck him, and he fell into the enclosure, severely wounded.  The rebels had fought bravely so far.  While their powder lasted they beat off the well armed, well trained regulars, and for twenty minutes held the swaddies at bay across their poor palisade; but at the expiration of that time there were not two dozen charges left in the stockade, and now the riflemen were ordered to retreat to the shallow shafts and use them as pits; and presently the noble 40th finding the resistance broken, was tearing at the logs and pickets, and at last the pikemen were on their feet and face to face with the foe.