"MARENGO!" replied the other, and commenced immediately to bellow aloud for his comrades; but his cries were drowned in the singing of the wind and noise of the Nive, which rushed over a steep cascade below the bastion.
"Och, murther! it's all over now; he'll bring the whole pack on us wid his schreechin',—the devil dhraw the tongue out ov ye! Tunder an' oons! Thurf and blazes! what's this he is after now?"
Paddy soon discovered that, and to his cost. The corporal, on getting one hand free, drew his bayonet, and plunged it into the arm of his antagonist, who no sooner found himself wounded, than he broke into a tremendous storm of passion. Thundering out one of those formidable curses which come so glibly from an Irish tongue, he wrested the weapon from the Frenchman, and buried it twice in his breast. All this passed in less than a minute, and the Frenchman expired without a groan.
"Mulroony, have you killed him?" asked Louis, considerably excited.
"Deed have I, sir,—the murderin' villyan!" answered the other composedly.
"Poor fellow! I had no intention that he should be slain. He was but doing his duty."
"A purty thing, to make sich a moan for a spalpeen iv a Frencher," answered the Irishman testily.
"Our lives are now indeed forfeited, if we cannot escape. Virginia!" He went from the turret to where she sat in a sort of stupor with cold and terror, and in a few words informed her that they must escape now, or be for ever lost.
"Blue blazes, sir!" bawled Paddy from the turret door; "is it the wimmen ye're afther? Is this a time to go making love? Musha! musha! sure there's always mischief where they are."
"Quick now, Mulroony,—follow us!" said Louis, who encircled Virginia with his arm to support her. "We have not a moment to lose. Heaven grant me firmness now!"