Since it was impossible to enter the fort here owing to the flames, Calamity led his men round to the other side which, so far, had escaped the fire, and gave the word to attack. With a wild yell of triumph, the party rushed up to the palisades and those who could not scale them, smashed a way through with their rifle butts. So far there had been no resistance, but, as Calamity reformed his men inside the enclosure, some twenty or thirty soldiers advanced upon them, led by an officer who appeared to be the commandant of the fort. The space was too confined for an exchange of rifle-fire and so the two parties immediately engaged in a close encounter with whatever weapons came handiest. The defenders fought with the desperate courage of men determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible, the seamen with the savage ferocity of men still smarting under defeat and eager to avenge it. Yet so fierce was the resistance that it seemed as though the Hawk's party might even now be forced to retreat, when, from the dense smoke in the Germans' rear, there came the sound of shots. The defenders, believing themselves attacked by another force from behind, threw down their arms, and their officer called out that he surrendered unconditionally.
There was a brief lull while Smith and the bos'n took charge of the prisoners. Then suddenly above the crackling of the flames, there arose, from amidst the smoke, a hoarse, stentorian voice bawling:
"Oh I'll tak' the high road,
An' you'll tak' the low——"
The voice ceased abruptly and there staggered into the open the figure of Phineas McPhulach, a revolver in one hand and a gin-bottle—which, at the moment, he was holding up to his mouth—in the other.
"For the days of auld Lang Syne!"
bellowed the engineer as he removed the bottle from his lips.
Then, heedless of the sensation he was causing among friend and foe alike, he commenced to dance a Highland fling, at the same time waving the revolver above his head and firing it to the peril of all beholders. Suddenly he threw the weapon from him, tried to execute a complicated step, failed, and collapsed on a heap of smoking timber.
"How the devil did you get here?" demanded Calamity.
A beatific but uncomprehending smile illumined the engineer's face and he made a vain effort to raise the gin-bottle to his lips.
"It's a—hic—michty square bus—hic—iness," he murmured.