"Advance and give the countersign," exclaimed the enraged soldier, who in martinet obedience to discipline, would challenge a drowning man before trying to save him.
"It's that same I would if I could," replied the bewildered Irishman, "but I can't walk on wather, and this ice-slush isn't much betther." "Unless you answer, I'll fire," shouted the sentry, to whom Mickey's maunderings, half drowned by the crashing ice and gusty wind, were unintelligible.
"Au' that same is the very thing I want, for it's starved wid the cowld I am," said the shivering creature, who with characteristic ingenuity had failed to apprehend the meaning of the menace addressed to him. But a sudden flash and the dull thud of a bullet against the ice beside him interpreted to his sluggish brain the danger in which he stood.
"The saints be betune us an' harm," he exclaimed, devoutly crossing himself. "Oh, sure ye won't murder a body in cowld blood who's kilt entirely already. It's half drownded and froze I am, without being riddled like a cullender wid your bullets as well."
"Why, Mickey O'Brian!" exclaimed the astonished soldier, who had by the gun-flash recognized the familiar features of a quondam friend; "why on earth didn't you tell your name, man? I might have killed you as dead as a door-nail."
"An' a purty thrickit 'ud be for ye, too, Tommy Daily. It's not ashamed of my name I am, an' if I'd know'd it was you, I'd tould ye before. But help us out of this an' I'll bear ye no malice whativer."
The guard had turned out at the report of the gun, and getting such planks as were available laid them on the floating ice; but still they could not reach the boat. Tommy Daily with fertile ingenuity tying some twine to his ramrod fired it over the skiff, when it was easy to send out a strong fisherman's line, which Mick tied to the thwarts, and a dozen strong arms drew the boat ashore. [Footnote: The present writer witnessed the rescue of a shipwrecked crew, in the manner here described, near this very spot.]
The benumbed form of Mary was borne to the guard-room, and Ensign
Roberts, the officer of the night, immediately sent for.
"Why, Miss Lawson!" he exclaimed with astonishment, "to what can we owe your presence at such a time and place as this?"
"To the inhumanity of your commander, and to my desire to rescue an innocent people from its consequences."