"You will have something exceedingly hot in your stomach unless you
move more lively," I said sternly.

The little group had barely vanished beyond the glow of the light when
from without our ears were suddenly assailed by a wild, exulting yell
that bespoke the charge.

"There they are!" I cried. "Now, lads, come with me!"

The dull, gray, chilling dawn revealed a room in utmost disorder, the
windows shattered, the blinds cut and splintered, the walls scarred
with bullets and disfigured with stains of blood, the furniture
overturned and broken. A dead soldier in gray uniform lay in the centre
of the floor, his life-blood a dark stain upon the rich carpet; a man
with coat off, and blue shirt ripped wide open, was leaning against the
further wall vainly endeavoring to stanch a wound in his chest. Brennan
was upon one knee near the central window, a smoking gun in his hand, a
red welt showing ghastly across his cheek. All this I saw in a single
glance, and then, with the leap of a panther, I was beside him, gazing
out into the morning mist, and firing as fast as I could handle my gun.

Through the shifting smoke clouds we could see them advancing on a
run,--an ugly, motley line, part blue, part gray, part everything,--
yelling as they swept forward like a pack of infuriated wolves, their
fierce faces scowling savagely behind the rifles. It was half war, half
riot--the reckless onslaught of outcasts bent on plunder, inspired by
lust, yet guided by rude discipline.

I knew little of detail; faces were blurred, unrecognizable; all I
seemed to note clearly was that solid, brutal, heartless, blaspheming