For a moment he stood gazing upon the tossing multitude beneath. There was a brief pause, and even the soldiers, awed by his intrepidity, forebore to fire. At last, however, they raised their muskets; when, with a hoarse scream, Bagsby leaped from the barricade, and alighted uninjured on the street. Had Mars descended in person to lead the insurrection, he could not have done better. “_Ah, le brave Anglais! Ah, le député intrépide! A la rescousse!_” was the cry, and a torrent of human beings rushed headlong over the barricade. No power on earth could have resisted that terrific charge. The Municipal Guards were scattered like chaff before the wind; some were cut down, and others escaped under cover of the ranks of the Nationals. Like the rest, I had leaped the embankment; but not being anxious to distinguish myself in single combat, I paused at the spot where Bagsby had fallen. There I found the illustrious delegate stretched upon the ground, still grasping the glorious colours. I stooped down and examined the body, but I could discover no wound. The blood that stained his forehead was evidently not his own. I loosened his neckcloth to give him air, but still there were no signs of animation. A crowd soon gathered around us—the victors were returning from the combat. “He will never fight more!” said the author of the Mysteries of Paris, whom I now recognised among the combatants. “He has led us on for the last time to victory! Alas for the adopted child of France! _Un vrai héros! Il est mort sur le champ de bataille!_ Messieurs, I propose that we decree for our departed comrade the honours of a public funeral!” CHAPTER IV. THE TUILLERIES. “How do you feel yourself to-day, Mr Bagsby?” said I, as I entered the apartment of that heroic individual on the following morning; “you made a very close shave of it, I can tell you. Eugène Sue wanted to have you stretched upon a shutter, and carried in procession as a victim through all the streets of Paris.” “Victim indeed!” replied Bagsby manipulating the small of his back, “I’ve been quite enough victimised already. Hanged if I don’t get that villain Albert impeached when I reach England, that’s all! I worked among them with the pickaxe till my arms were nearly broken, and the only thanks I got was to be shot at like a popinjay.” “Nay, Mr Bagsby, you have covered yourself with glory. Every one says that but for you the barricade would inevitably have been carried.” “They might have carried it to the infernal regions for aught that I cared,” replied Bagsby. “Catch me fraternising again with any of them; a disreputable set of scoundrels with never a shirt to their back.” “You forget, my dear sir,” said I: “Mr Cobden is of opinion that they are the most affectionate and domesticated people on the face of the earth.”