his eyes blazing.  That momentary panic saved Clontarf.  In a second Ralph had thrown him under the arch of a deep doorway, and placed himself between the senseless body and its assailants.  Two or three shots were fired at him without effect; it was difficult to take aim in such a tossing chaos; then one man, Delaney, sprung out at him with a clubbed musket.  “At last!” we heard Mohun say, laughing low and savagely in his beard as he stepped one pace forward to meet his enemy.  A blow that looked as if it might have felled Behemoth was warded dexterously by the sabre, and, by a quick turn of the wrist, its edge laid the Rapparee’s face open in a bright scarlet gash, extending from eyebrow to chin.

His comrades rushed over his body, furious, though somewhat disheartened at seeing their champion come to grief; but they had to deal with a blade that had kept half a dozen Hungarian swordsmen at bay, and, with point or edge, it met them every where, magically.  They were drawing back, when Delaney, recovering from the first effects of his fearful wound, crawled forward, gasping out curses that seemed floating on the torrent of his rushing blood, and tried to grasp Mohun by the knees and drag him down.

Pah! it was a sight to haunt one’s dreams. (You might have filled my glass, some of you, when you saw it was empty.)

Ralph looked down on him, and laughed again; his sabre whirled round once, and cleared a wide circle; then, trampling down the wounded man by main force, he drove the point through his throat, and pinned him to the floor.  I tell you I heard the steel plainly as it grated on the stone.  There was an awful convulsion of all the limbs, and then the huge mass lay quite still.

Then came a lull for several moments.  The Irish cowered back to the door like penned sheep; their ammunition was exhausted, and none dared to cross the hideous barrier that now was between them and the terrible Cuirassier.

All this took about half the time to act that it does to tell.  I was hesitating whether to descend or to stay where my duty called me—­near my wife.  Fritz knelt behind me, silent and motionless; he had got his orders to stay by me to the last; but the sturdy keeper rose to his feet.

“Faix,” he said, “I’m but a poor hand at the swoording, but I must help my master, anyhow;” and he began to climb over the breastwork.  The colonel’s quick glance caught the movement, and his brief imperious tones rang over the hubbub of voices loud and clear,

“Don’t stir, Connell; stay where you are.  I can finish with these hounds alone.”

As he spoke, he dashed in upon them with lowered head and uplifted sword.

I don’t wonder that they all recoiled; his whole face and form were fearfully transfigured; every hair in his bushy beard was bristling with rage, and the incarnate devil of murder was gleaming redly in his eyes.

Just then there was a wild cry from without, answered by a shriek from my wife, who had been quiet till now.  At first I thought that some fellows had scaled the window; but I soon distinguished the accents of a great joy.  My poor Kate!  She had roughed it in barracks too long not to know the rattle of the steel scabbards.