How strange are the chances of war!  But half an hour before he and I were engaged in mortal combat, and our prisoner was all but my conqueror.  Grappling with Cambaceres, whom I knocked from his horse, and was about to despatch, I felt a lunge behind, which luckily was parried by my sabretache; a herculean grasp was at the next instant at my throat—­I was on the ground—­my prisoner had escaped, and a gigantic warrior in the uniform of a colonel of the regiment of Artois glaring over me with pointed sword.

“Rends-toi, coquin!” said he.

“Allez an Diable!” said I:  “a Fogarty never surrenders.”

I thought of my poor mother and my sisters, at the old house in Killaloo—­I felt the tip of his blade between my teeth—­I breathed a prayer, and shut my eyes—­when the tables were turned—­the butt-end of Lanty Clancy’s musket knocked the sword up and broke the arm that held it.

“Thonamoundiaoul nabochlish,” said the French officer, with a curse in the purest Irish.  It was lucky I stopped laughing time enough to bid Lanty hold his hand, for the honest fellow would else have brained my gallant adversary.  We were the better friends for our combat, as what gallant hearts are not?

The breach was to be stormed at sunset, and like true soldiers we sat down to make the most of our time.  The rogue of a Doctor took the liver-wing for his share—­we gave the other to our guest, a prisoner; those scoundrels Jack Delamere and Tom Delaney took the legs—­and, ’faith, poor I was put off with the Pope’s nose and a bit of the back.

“How d’ye like his Holiness’s FAYTURE?” said Jerry Blake.

“Anyhow you’ll have a merry thought,” cried the incorrigible Doctor, and all the party shrieked at the witticism.

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said Jack, holding up the drumstick clean.

“’Faith, there’s not enough of it to make us chicken-hearted, anyhow,” said I; “come, boys, let’s have a song.”

“Here goes,” said Tom Delaney, and sung the following lyric, of his own composition—­

     “Dear Jack, this white mug that with Guinness I fill,
     And drink to the health of sweet Nan of the hill,
     Was once Tommy Tosspot’s, as jovial a sot,
     As e’er drew a spigot, or drain’d a full pot—­
     In drinking all round ’twas his joy to surpass,
     And with all merry tipplers he swigg’d off his glass.

     “One morning in summer, while seated so snug,
     In the porch of his garden, discussing his jug,
     Stern Death, on a sudden, to Tom did appear,
     And said, ‘Honest Thomas, come take your last bier;’
     We kneaded his clay in the shape of this can,
     From which let us drink to the health of my Nan.”

“Psha!” said the Doctor, “I’ve heard that song before; here’s a new one for you, boys!” and Sawbones began, in a rich Corkagian voice—­

“You’ve all heard of Larry O’Toole,
Of the beautiful town of Drumgoole;
He had but one eye,
To ogle ye by—­
Oh, murther, but that was a jew’l! 
A fool
He made of de girls, dis O’Toole.