'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.
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.