The infantry poured into the stockade with fixed bayonets, and against their experience and their efficient weapons the insurgents made a poor show; but they fought stubbornly, if clumsily, and now Jim found himself fighting in grim earnest.  He saw a big Lanky spring at him from the logs, with bayonet set stock to hip, and with a lucky twist of, his pole he beat down the other’s weapon.  But the long hafts of the pikes made them most unwieldy, and in the few seconds that followed Jim stood cheek-by-jowl with death.  Suddenly his eyes encountered the face of Canty over the left shoulder of the swaddy.  The little Irishman had pulled himself to his feet, his back was to the logs, his pike raised in his two hands.  Lurching forward, he plunged the blade into the neck of the soldier.  The Lanky’s bayonet dropped from his hand, and he fell backwards.  The haft of the pike striking the ground stopped him for a moment, and then he swung sideways and dropped on to his face; the pike remaining wedged in his spine, the shaft sprang into the air in a manner that was never after quite free of a suggestion of the hideously ludicrous in Jim’s mind.  Canty stared for a moment at his fallen enemy, and then, uttering a strange Irish cry of exultation, he fell back across the logs, never to stir again.

The fight at the logs was brief, but fierce.  Finding the pikes useless for thrusting, many of the diggers clubbed them.  Following this example, Jim swept a second soldier off his feet, and was laying about him with all his strength, when a cavalryman drove his horse at the stockade, and came over almost on top of him, slashing wildly right and left as he came.  The soldier’s sword struck Done on the left side of the head, inflicting a wound extending from the neck almost to the crown.  Jim fell against the horse, clinging weakly to his pike, feeling the hot blood rolling down his neck.  He saw the sword raised again, but at that instant a revolver flashed over his shoulder, and the mounted man dived forward, rolled on the neck of his horse, and slid slowly to the ground—­dead.  Jim turned and recognised the pale face of his brother in the dim light of morning, but at the same instant was struck again, and fell with a bullet in his shoulder.

Wat Ryder uttered a fierce oath, and sprang at the bridle of the riderless horse.  With the rein over his arm, he knelt by Jim’s side, and endeavoured to rouse him.  The infantry were now all within the stockade, pressing forward, firing amongst the scattered insurgents and into the holes where the riflemen were, and the cavalry and mounted troopers were pursuing the rebels, cutting them down ruthlessly.

Ryder succeeded in getting Jim to his feet, and he clung limply to the horse’s mane, only dimly conscious of what was happening.

‘For God’s sake, make an effort, Jim!’ cried Ryder.  ’Here, up with you, stranger!  I’ll give the boy a lift,’ said an insurgent, suddenly appearing from a hiding-place amongst the logs.